Donald Trump has gone on a late-night meltdown, attacking an Alaska Senate candidate who is accused of being a plant intended to destroy the Republican incumbent’s re-election hopes.
In a raging, all-caps Truth Social post at 1:12 a.m. ET, the 80-year-old president blasted the “fake” candidate Dan J. Sullivan, who is running in Tuesday’s crucial midterm race alongside Sen. Dan S. Sullivan, Democrat Mary Peltola and a fourth long-shot candidate.
Dan J. Sullivan is accused of being a spoiler candidate recruited by Peltola’s campaign to run in the Senate race and trick voters into inadvertently backing him over the incumbent, as the two nearly identical names will both appear on the ballot.
Last week, CBS News reported that Dan J. Sullivan, who originally ran as a Republican but will now be listed on the midterm ballot with no party affiliation, had disappeared from his hometown of Petersburg after his campaign became the subject of a criminal investigation by Trump’s Justice Department.
“FAKE ALASKA CANDIDATE DANIAL J. SULLIVAN, JR., IS MISSING IN ACTION! HE HAS TOTALLY DISAPPEARED, GONE! NOBODY HAS BEEN ABLE TO FIND HIM,” Trump wrote.
“MAYBE HE HAS BEEN ‘KIDNAPPED’ BY THE CORRUPT DUMOCRAT LAWYERS??? THEY ARE SCARED STIFF OF BEING PROSECUTED FOR ELECTION FRAUD!!!”
The Alaska Senate race is one of several contests in red states that Democrats hope to win to flip control of the upper chamber.
An AtlasIntel poll released Monday showed Peltola leading Sen. Sullivan (50 percent to 44 percent), with Dan J. Sullivan on just 0.6 percent.
Dan J. Sullivan, a former elementary school teacher, has denied that he is running in Tuesday’s race only because he was recruited by Peltola’s team to sabotage Sen. Sullivan’s re-election bid. In a June interview with the Associated Press, he said he had had “zero, none, zilch” contact with Peltola’s campaign or anyone else from the Democratic Party about running.
Fellow Petersburg residents have expressed doubts about the legitimacy of Dan J. Sullivan’s Senate bid, given that he has barely campaigned.
“I don’t think it’s a serious candidacy,” Andrew Worhatch told CBS News. “I haven’t seen a platform.”
The Justice Department has issued subpoenas to several Democratic officials as part of a federal criminal probe into whether there was an active attempt to recruit Daniel J. Sullivan to appear on Alaska’s ballot to sabotage Sen. Sullivan. Republican Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy has also demanded a separate state investigation into allegations involving Peltola’s campaign team, which were first reported by The New York Times.
On Sunday, a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit filed by the Trump administration seeking to block certification of Alaska’s Senate election if Sen. Sullivan loses his re-election bid.
In her ruling, Judge Sharon Gleason—an Obama appointee—said the government’s plans to interfere in a state election were “infeasible” because many voters had already cast their ballots.
“More fundamentally, the United States provides no workable plan as to how it proposes to segregate ballots cast for Daniel J. Sullivan on Election Day and then conduct a court-ordered unspecified ‘investigation’ of those ballots in a manner that would preserve voter secrecy,” she wrote.
In a statement, Peltola’s campaign described the ruling as a “victory for democracy and a clear message to Donald Trump and Senate Republicans: No one, no matter how powerful, can toss out free and fair elections just because they don’t like the result.”
