Michigan's El-Sayed targeted by Republicans in Midterms race: Will the religion card work?

Alaska's Senate race is facing a new controversy over two candidates with nearly identical names: Republican incumbent Dan S. Sullivan and unaffiliated challenger Daniel J. Sullivan Jr. The presence of these two candidates on the ballot has drawn attention, especially from President Trump, who has accused Democrats of election fraud and called for criminal prosecution.

The controversy has added uncertainty to one of the nation's most competitive Senate contests, with control of Congress at stake in the upcoming midterm elections.

The situation began when Democratic operatives with ties to Mary Peltola's Senate campaign helped recruit Daniel J. Sullivan Jr. to challenge the Republican incumbent. The New York Times reported that Peltola's campaign and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee denied the allegations. The same-name controversy has been known for months, with a top Alaskan election official ruling that Daniel J. Sullivan was ineligible to run on the primary ballot in June.

However, the Alaska Supreme Court later allowed him to appear on the ballot, citing insufficient evidence of intent to mislead voters.

Trump reacted to the controversy by accusing Democrats of election fraud and calling for criminal prosecution. Governor Mike Dunleavy ordered an investigation into Peltola's campaign, and House Republicans launched their own probe. The presence of two Sullivans in the race has the potential to confuse voters, but Alaska's ranked-choice voting system may limit the impact of this confusion.

In this system, voters rank candidates in order of preference, and if no candidate wins a majority of first-place votes, their votes are transferred to the next-ranked choice. If the Sullivan confusion leads to a close race, voters who mistakenly select the unaffiliated candidate without ranking the incumbent could still cost the Republican votes.