{"id":3625,"date":"2026-11-01T14:03:47","date_gmt":"2026-11-01T09:03:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=3625"},"modified":"2026-11-01T14:03:47","modified_gmt":"2026-11-01T09:03:47","slug":"trump-administration-steps-up-poll-pressure-ahead-of-midterms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=3625","title":{"rendered":"Trump administration steps up poll pressure ahead of midterms"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

President Donald Trump\u2019s administration pressed a criminal investigation into Alaska\u2019s pivotal US Senate race and said on Saturday it would \u200blikely take its fight over thousands of California mail-in ballots to the Supreme Court, as the midterm campaign for control of Congress entered its final weekend.<\/strong><\/p>\n

In Alaska, federal prosecutors are investigating<\/a> \u200cwhether aides to Democratic challenger Mary Peltola helped to recruit a retired schoolteacher, Daniel J. Sullivan Jr., to run because his name is similar to the Republican incumbent, Senator Dan S. Sullivan.<\/p>\n

The closely contested race is seen as crucial to Democrats\u2019 hopes of taking the Senate in Tuesday\u2019s vote<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It is one of 35 Senate races, along with all 435 House seats, that will decide whether Trump\u2019s Republicans keep control of Congress for his final two years in office.<\/p>\n

Republicans hold a 53-47 Senate majority and a narrow \u200bedge in the House.<\/p>\n

Early voting has set a record. More than 51 million Americans have already cast ballots in person or by mail, according to the University of Florida\u2019s Election Lab, up \u200bfrom nearly 46 million who voted before Election Day at the last midterms in 2022.<\/p>\n

In California, a federal appeals court this week ruled 2-1 that the \u2060Justice Department had failed to justify its emergency bid to force the state to set aside mail ballots from more than 20,000 registered voters it alleges are likely noncitizens.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hesitate to give a final answer, but \u200bI think probably the Supreme Court\u2019s next on this one,\u201d acting Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter told Fox News on Saturday, adding that any request for Supreme Court consideration would come before Tuesday\u2019s election.<\/p>\n

Trump has been \u200bon a campaign blitz in multiple states over the past month but is spending Saturday at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida. He returns to the campaign trail on Sunday in Kansas and Iowa.<\/p>\n

<\/a>Alaska probe intensifies<\/strong><\/h3>\n

The Justice Department\u2019s top prosecutor in Alaska, US Attorney Michael Heyman, said at a Friday press conference that a recent New York Times article, saying there had been an effort to recruit<\/a> Daniel J. Sullivan Jr. had driven a \u201csurge\u201d of FBI resources onto the case.<\/p>\n

Heyman said he had \u200bassigned several prosecutors to it and that investigative steps were taking place \u201cintensely and swiftly.\u201d<\/p>\n

Peltola and the campaign committee have denied involvement in any effort to recruit the second Sullivan.<\/p>\n

The retired teacher has denied coordinating with \u200bPeltola\u2019s campaign.<\/p>\n

Voters in Alaska have largely dismissed the fight over the ballot.<\/p>\n

\u201cI knew which Dan Sullivan was which Dan Sullivan, you know? It\u2019s very clear on the ballot,\u201d Anchorage resident Mickey Buster, 36, said as he stood outside a \u200cpolling place on \u2060Saturday.<\/p>\n

But another Anchorage voter, Carol Riggs, 52, said she was disappointed by the entire situation and the possibility it \u201cmuddies the water for some voters, potentially.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/a>Michigan rift<\/strong><\/h3>\n

In Michigan, where Democrat Abdul El Sayed faces Republican Mike Rogers in another closely watched Senate race, El Sayed\u2019s feud with the rival he beat in the primary, US Representative Haley Stevens, flared again.<\/p>\n

El Sayed\u2019s campaign asked Stevens<\/a> to skip his events through Election Day so as \u201cnot to distract from the central issues of the campaign,\u201d a person familiar with the matter said.<\/p>\n

Stevens has backed El-Sayed but demanded he condemn an outside group\u2019s ad blaming Israel for high grocery prices and apologise for past rhetoric about Israel.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s certainly \u200bunhelpful to the El-Sayed campaign to have continued visible \u200bdivision within the party just before Election Day,\u201d \u2060said Matt Grossmann, a political scientist at Michigan State University. Polls show El Sayed has largely consolidated Democratic support.<\/p>\n

<\/a>Trump\u2019s pressure campaign<\/strong><\/h3>\n

The administration, beyond its bid to block the counting of ballots from more than 20,000 California voters it alleges could be noncitizens, has sued roughly 30 states and the District of Columbia seeking unredacted voter \u200brolls.<\/p>\n

The legal manoeuvres have alarmed state election officials<\/a>. Under the Constitution, states have primary authority over how elections are run.<\/p>\n

On Friday, a federal judge ordered the Justice \u200bDepartment to stop threatening to prosecute<\/a> \u2060California election officials who defy its directives.<\/p>\n

California Governor Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, on Saturday warned the state\u2019s top federal judges that the Justice Department may seek warrants to seize ballots before results are certified, though he said he did not know of any pending request.<\/p>\n

Newsom said in a letter to the judges that the only reason to seize ballots \u201cwould be to interfere\u201d in the count.<\/p>\n

Sean Morales-Doyle of the Brennan Centre for Justice said the efforts, while \u2060unlikely to \u200bwin in court, aim at \u201ccreating uncertainty, sowing fear, distrust, chaos,\u201d in hopes of pressuring officials such as Alaska\u2019s lieutenant governor \u201cto do something \u200bthat they\u2019re not supposed to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even so, 76% of US voters are confident their ballots will be counted accurately, according to a Reuters\/Ipsos poll conducted from September 30 to October 5, with confidence about equally high among Republicans and Democrats.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

President Donald Trump\u2019s administration pressed a criminal investigation into Alaska\u2019s pivotal US Senate race and said on Saturday it would \u200blikely take its fight over thousands of California mail-in ballots to the Supreme Court, as the midterm campaign for control of Congress entered its final weekend. In Alaska, federal prosecutors are investigating \u200cwhether aides to Democratic challenger Mary Peltola helped to recruit a retired schoolteacher, Daniel J. Sullivan Jr., to run because his name is similar to the Republican incumbent, Senator Dan S. Sullivan. The closely contested race is seen…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3625","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english"],"gutentor_comment":0,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3625","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3625"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3625\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}