Attorney General Todd Blanche slammed Alaska Democrats on Wednesday over an alleged scheme to recruit a second “Dan Sullivan” to run against Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan, saying the effort amounts to cheating.
“They are cheating! Let’s call it what it is, they are cheating,” Blanche said on Fox News’ “The Will Cain Show.” “They are trying to take votes away from the incumbent, not by running an election and not by running on issues, but by putting up a person with the same name so they’d confuse Alaskans.”
Host Will Cain asked whether the scheme was actually illegal.
“Well, think about what you just had to ask, Will. If it’s cheating, if it’s fraud, is it illegal? And the answer is, it certainly should be,” Blanche said.
Blanche said the Justice Department currently has a civil suit asking a federal court to intervene. “It cannot be in this country that you can have an election that is cheating and fraud, but that there’s nothing wrong and that we’re all okay with that,” he said. “The Alaskan citizens are not okay with that, the people in this country are not okay with that, and neither is President Trump and neither am I.”
About an hour after Blanche’s interview, Fox News correspondent David Spunt reported the Justice Department had launched an aggressive criminal investigation into how Daniel J. Sullivan Jr. landed on the ballot. Fox News correspondent Bill Melugin reported that, according to DOJ sources, multiple grand jury subpoenas would be issued and preservation orders were being prepared for cell phone companies regarding texts and emails that could help build a timeline.
Blanche’s comments came hours after The New York Times reported that staffers for Democratic Senate candidate Mary Peltola worked for months to find another Dan Sullivan to siphon votes from the Republican incumbent. According to the Times, a Peltola staffer was instructed in the summer of 2025 to comb through voter records for people with that name.
Shortly before Blanche’s appearance, Trump called for Peltola to face consequences. “The Democrats’ false statements were made under oath in Federal Court,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “Mary Peltola should suffer the Legal and Political consequences for what she has done, A FRAUD ON THE AMERICAN PUBLIC.”
Peltola’s campaign and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee have denied involvement with Daniel J. Sullivan Jr.’s candidacy. Peltola has called the report a “distraction.”
Blanche has drawn pushback from Democrats and media figures over the Justice Department’s lawsuit seeking to block certification of the race if Sullivan loses. In weekend interviews on CNN and CBS, Blanche rejected suggestions the suit was politically motivated.
Peltola holds a two-point edge over Sullivan in most polls tracked by the Times. Alaska voters head to the polls on Tuesday.
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