Dan Sullivan Timeline: How Trump’s Posts Tracked DOJ’s Alaska Senate Fight - Newsweek

A week after Alaska's polls closed, with ballots still being counted, President Donald Trump returned to the race he could not stop writing about. "Dan Sullivan PLUS Dan Sullivan," he posted on Truth Social Tuesday. He demanded that every vote for a retired Petersburg schoolteacher be handed to the Republican senator who shares his name, and called the contest a "rigged election."

Alaska’s ballot does not work that way. Votes move only through rankings voters made themselves, and only if no candidate wins more than 50 percent of first-choice votes. In that case, the state runs a ranked-choice tabulation on November 18. But the post was the latest entry in a record that runs back to April.

Newsweek logged more than 30 dated events: presidential posts, court filings, Justice Department statements and actions by Alaska officials. The record does not show that the posts caused the department's moves. The federal inquiry began before the heaviest posting. It shows something narrower. Twice this fall, a presidential post was followed within a day by a Justice Department legal action—and twice more, his words and the department’s landed on the same news day. And when asked who wanted the government's lawsuit, the president and his attorney general gave different answers.

As of 10:59 p.m. Eastern November 12, the Alaska Division of Elections unofficial results showed Democrat Mary Peltola with 125,157 first-choice votes and Republican Sen. Dan S. Sullivan with 119,357. Republican Gerald L. Heikes had 5,490, and Daniel J. Sullivan Jr. had 4,199. As of 11:01 p.m. Eastern, the Associated Press estimated 88 percent of the vote counted and had not called the race. Absentee ballots mailed within the U.S. and postmarked by Election Day are accepted through November 13, and overseas ballots can arrive through November 18. Certification is targeted for November 25.

The record begins with the voting system itself. On April 10, Trump called Alaska's ranked-choice voting "disastrous, and very fraudulent."

Around May 29, Daniel J. Sullivan Jr., a retired fifth-grade teacher from the fishing town of Petersburg, filed to run for the Senate, according to the Justice Department's complaint. The state's elections director tried to remove him from the ballot, and Alaska's courts restored him in late June. On July 3, ABC News reported that the department had opened an investigation into his campaign. That came before almost every presidential post on the subject.

On primary day, August 18, Trump wrote: "VOTE FOR THE REAL DAN SULLIVAN TODAY." That same day, Reuters reported that the department had issued grand jury subpoenas, citing a source familiar with the probe.

The pattern is clearest in late October. At 10:28 p.m. Eastern on October 21, Trump wrote on Truth Social that the administration was weighing "powerful legal options to remove the fraudulent Daniel J. Sullivan Jr. from the Ballot."

On Thursday, before anything was filed, Attorney General Todd Blanche, Trump's former personal lawyer, told reporters it is "never our intention" to improperly interfere with certification. Later that day, the department sued Alaska. The complaint asked a judge to block certification of any result that votes for Daniel J. Sullivan Jr. could have changed. It was signed by Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward, who had represented Trump allies and January 6 defendants.

On Friday, Trump landed in Florida and settled the question of where the suit came from. "I'm the one that said do it," he told reporters.

On Saturday, Blanche wrote on X that the suit "was written by Justice Department attorneys" and relied solely on federal law. He did not say who had asked for it. Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski, who had endorsed Sullivan, said the department "should never have filed this lawsuit." At 11:13 p.m. Eastern, Trump called Alaska's ballot "a TOTAL DEMOCRAT SCAM meant to confuse the Voter." The next day, Peltola's lawyers quoted that post in a court filing.

On Sunday, Blanche told CNN that Trump was not trying to overturn Alaska's results "in any way, shape or form." On CBS' Face the Nation, Margaret Brennan asked who Trump had told to file the suit. "I will never, ever, ever talk about communications that I have with the president of the United States," Blanche said. Asked whom Trump meant by "I'm the one that said do it," he said he had no idea, and would not say if he did. The president says he gave the order. His attorney general says he does not know to whom. The two accounts have never been squared.

On October 28, The New York Times reported that people tied to Peltola's campaign and aides at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee had helped push the Petersburg candidate onto the ballot. The report relied partly on a fired former campaign manager who later tried to retract her comments. The campaign and the DSCC denied involvement.

That day, Trump wrote that Peltola "should suffer the Legal and Political consequences." Blanche told Fox News to expect more from the department "this week." Governor Mike Dunleavy ordered a state investigation. Within a day, the department had issued a new round of grand jury subpoenas, and filed an amended complaint that drew on the press reports.

On November 1, U.S. District Judge Sharon Gleason dismissed the suit for lack of standing. Setting ballots aside for investigators, she found, was not something the court "can or should order." Within two hours, the government said it would appeal. Early on Election Day, Trump posted that the Petersburg candidate was "MISSING IN ACTION." That day, news broke that prosecutors had sent target letters to Democratic attorney Marc Elias and others.

The posts outlasted the voting. On November 5, Trump wrote that the votes for the "Fake Dan Sullivan" belonged to the senator: "There is no other fair solution!" On November 8, Dunleavy told a radio host that state investigators were examining "anything that might resemble perjury." The appeal is moving more slowly. The department's opening brief is not due until December 14, weeks after Alaska plans to certify.

Unless a candidate wins more than 50 percent of first-choice votes, the state will run its ranked-choice tabulation on November 18 and show where Daniel J. Sullivan Jr.'s voters placed their second choices. It will show where those ballots went, not why. The state's own lawyers told the court that no pattern of ballot markings will reveal a voter's reason for choosing him.

The teacher from Petersburg has said almost nothing since summer. In August, he told The New York Times he hoped voters could tell an incumbent senator from a teacher. The last word on what Alaskans meant will come from their own rankings, counted one choice at a time.

Newsweek logged more than 30 dated events from April 10 to November 10. Each entry links to the original post or filing where possible, and the rest are attributed to the outlets that reported them.

Peltola's campaign and the DSCC deny any role in recruiting Daniel J. Sullivan Jr., who has said he entered the race on his own.

Newsweek’s reporters and editors used Martyn, our AI assistant, to produce this story. Learn more about Martyn here. Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Edward T. Cummins