Days before Alaskans get to vote, the federal government is already trying to overturn the result.
asserted
government → get → result
Last week, at Donald Trump’s behest, the justice department sued to block the certification of Alaska’s US Senate race, if the Republican incumbent narrowly loses; a judge dismissed that suit on Sunday, though the administration said it planned to appeal.
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it → sue → Sunday
On Wednesday, Trump demanded that Mary Peltola, the Alaska Native Democrat whom polls favor to win, be removed from the ballot and prosecuted.
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polls → demand → ballot
Piling on, Alaska’s Republican governor has since ordered an investigation into Peltola’s campaign.
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governor → pile → campaign
A New York Times investigation reported that operatives working with Peltola’s campaign helped recruit the other Sullivan, a retired teacher from Petersburg, to split the incumbent’s vote.
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operatives → report → vote
Peltola and her campaign have denied this.
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Peltola → deny → this
Whatever your reaction to the tactic, it’s generally legal in Alaska, where the state supreme court refused to remove the other Sullivan from the ballot.
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court → ’ → ballot
In 2020, Trump’s allies pushed Kanye West on to ballots in states including Vermont, Arkansas and Wisconsin to take away votes from Democrats.
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allies → push → Democrats
Again, in 2024, Trump allies worked to get Jill Stein and Cornel West on ballots in swing states, and Trump praised both from a rally stage because each “takes 100%” from Democrats.
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each → work → Democrats
Not one federal lawyer intervened.
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lawyer → intervene → ?
What’s different in Alaska is not the tactic.
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’s → ’ → Alaska
It’s that the federal government has decided to police it in one race, before a single vote is counted.
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vote → ’ → race
The pretext falls flat.
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pretext → fall → ?
In Ohio, the Libertarian candidate Bill Redpath is being promoted by Democrat-affiliated groups, as Republicans have spent more than $1.58m boosting Gregory Levy, a progressive candidate.
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Republicans → promote → Levy
At the same time in Iowa, Democratic-aligned Pacs have deployed hundreds of thousands of dollars to promote a Libertarian candidate, Thomas Raymond Laehn, whose presence on the ballot could eat into the Republican candidate Ashley Hinson’s already slim polling lead.
uncertain
presence → align → lead
That last example is the very same tactic, used by the same party, against the same kind of target: a Republican in a tight race.
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example → use → race
The justice department hasn’t touched this.
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department → touch → this
It has sued in only one state, the one where an Alaska Native woman is favored to win.
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woman → sue → state
The Democratic candidate Peggy Flanagan in Minnesota, a member of the White Earth Band of Ojibwe, is experiencing similarly heightened scrutiny in her US Senate campaign.
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candidate → experience → campaign
On 21 October, the Wall Street Journal reported that Flanagan had inflated her credentials by claiming Phi Beta Kappa membership.
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Flanagan → report → membership
WSJ’s perusal didn’t hold up.
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perusal → hold → ?
Phi Beta Kappa’s associate secretary and chief operating officer, Amber Fox, confirmed to CBS News that Flanagan was inducted in 2002.
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Flanagan → confirm → 2002
WSJ eventually corrected the story.
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WSJ → correct → story
Political scientists have shown how doubts about electability follow women of color.
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doubts → show → color
Primary voters may personally agree with their positions, yet withhold support because they fear other voters, especially general-election swing voters, won’t back the candidates.
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voters → agree → candidates
Local party chairs share these doubts too.
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chairs → share → doubts
Researchers at Rutgers’ Center for American Women and Politics have also found that Native American women in politics, among other women of color, carry heightened stress and perform additional emotional labor because of their intersecting identities, though Native women remain among the least studied groups in the field.
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women → find → field
Peltola and Flanagan are testing these entrenched doubts in majority-white statewide races, and the scrutiny lands right as they do.
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they → test → races
Peltola has also weathered two major New York Times investigations in five weeks, one into her treatment of staff and one into the ballot scheme, and her lead has held.
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lead → weather → scheme
No Native American woman has ever served in the US Senate.
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woman → serve → Senate
This year, two are within reach of it, and both have spent the final weeks of their campaigns fending off scrutiny, one from a major newspaper that appears to have gotten the story wrong, the other from a federal government that has singled out her race alone.
Why Alaska?
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that → spend → race
Republicans hold the Senate 53-47, and Alaska is one of only a small handful of toss-ups that will decide if Trump can keep his majority for the last two years of his presidency.
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Trump → hold → presidency
It’s a state he has carried three times, but a majority of likely voters now disapprove of him.
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majority → ’ → him
Alaska Native voters complicate the picture even more deeply.
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voters → complicate → picture
In 2024, the North Slope and North-west Arctic district, where Alaska Native voters are a majority, gave Trump half its vote in the presidential race and Peltola 55% in that year’s House race.
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voters → give → race
Many of the voters Washington now claims to be protecting chose both.
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Washington → claim → both
But the method matters more than the motive.
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method → matter → motive
A justice department that will sue to pre-empt a state’s certification, on behalf of one candidate, before a single ballot is counted, is testing the limits of a power the constitution leaves to states.
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constitution → sue → states
If it works in Alaska, what stops it from working in 2028, in any state that is close enough to matter?
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that → work → state
That it is being tried first on an Alaska Native woman, in a state far from Washington’s attention, should ring alarm bells for far more people than the Native voters it targets first.
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it → try → voters
…and 6 more, not listed.
The Aporia
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