From§Each

Page B45From§Eachthe evening edition — 25 October 2026

ZERO BALLOTS

Attorney general calls three hosts misleading, crazy, and not a real question; the one from Trump remains unanswered.

“Trump worries Alaska voters ‘don’t know what incumbent means’ on ranked choice ballot”, 25 October 2026 (Photo via Washington Examiner — the original report)

As it ran on the front

I went down about a parking permit, got sent to a window for something called "owner verification," which isn't a department I knew existed, and when I finally got to the right one the woman behind the glass took one look at my form and said somebody downstairs should never have told me to come upstairs — I don't want to say crazy, but that's the word I'd already written in the margin before she said it.

I was standing there with the pen still out when it came to me — not the permit, the other thing, the thing I'd meant to look up before I left the house. I keep a few pages folded in my coat for just this. Here. On the sixth, before anybody had voted anywhere, people who'd pushed the 2020 fraud claims started making fresh ones about this one. On the seventh, the NAACP sued the administration over a plan to send what a federal civil rights official called a historic number of election monitors to the polls. Had any ballot anywhere been challenged yet at that point? On the ninth the president asked, in public, how stupid Alaska had to be, running three Republicans against one Democrat for governor. On the fourteenth he called the state's ranked-choice ballot "damn bad cheating" and asked voters to repeal it before they'd used it again. On the sixteenth the two Senate candidates debated, and the paper's own list of takeaways put corruption third, after fish and oil. On the twenty-second — I have this one twice, because I didn't believe it the first time — the attorney general was asked whether his department would weigh in on how a state certifies its results. Did he name one, or did he just say there were "scenarios we could all come up with"?…

…(cont) Then Saturday, the twenty-fourth, it stopped being a scenario. The department filed — not against a ballot, not against a precinct, but against a result, and only the one result: if the Republican, Senator Sullivan, loses. The president told reporters, "I'm the one that said do it." The next morning, on two separate programs, did the attorney general say so too?

He did not, on either one. On the program with Margaret Brennan, he called her description of the suit "misleading." On the program with Dana Bash, he cut off a question about a repeat of January sixth: "That is not a real question."

I keep an old claim form in the glovebox from a policy I never ended up buying, one that only would have paid out if I lost the car on a day I also lost something else. I never bought it, because nobody sells that — an insurer who wrote a payout contingent on the customer's own loss would be out of business by the next renewal. So when the filing says certification gets blocked only if the Republican loses, I keep going out to the garage to check whether any paper I actually own works that way. None of them do. Has a single ballot, anywhere, been challenged to make this claim necessary?

Oh — one more thing, before I forget, since you've been patient. That question about January sixth, the one he told Dana Bash wasn't real — earlier in that same interview, asked about the very same possibility, did he call it unlikely, or did he call it, in his own word, crazy?

“This isn't about two guys named Dan Sullivan, it's about one guy making sure the count only counts if his side wins. They sue before a single ballot's been touched, and then the attorney general can't say whether the president ordered it — that's not an accident, that's a man checking which lie he's allowed to tell on which channel. Nine days out, the only question left is the one on the ballot.”
Sal
“Look, two candidates with the same name on one ballot, that's a real administrative headache, this is just the Department making sure the process is clean — hang on, why would a clean process only need defending if the Republican loses? No, forget I said that, there's a scenario, there's definitely a scenario, I just can't name it right now.”
Chip

Earlier in this story

The receipts

Trump worries Alaska voters ‘don’t know what incumbent means’ on ranked choice ballot
Washington Examinerright§

President Donald Trump on Sunday said he was worried Alaska voters will be confused when casting their votes Nov. 3 due to some possibly not knowing what the incumbent label means on the ranked choice ballot. Trump has repeatedly taken issue with Alaska’s ranked choice voting system, particularly as two candidates named Daniel Sullivan…

This week on the Hill: Trump, Obama lead final push before Election Day 9 days until Election Day: Trump and Obama make their closing case
The Hillmainstream§

It’s the final full week before Election Day, and candidates are ramping up their campaigns with rallies, high-profile surrogates and a last round of debates. After a week of daily campaign events across the U.S., President Trump is set to visit Corinth, Miss., on Monday, in support of Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.).

Trump tells Iowa rally crowd he encouraged Ramaswamy to keep running widely criticized campaign ad – as it happened
The Guardianmainstream§

This live blog is now closed. Sign up for the Breaking News US email Trump attacks Ohio governor over call for Ramaswamy to drop ‘deeply troubling’ ad Reporting from Anchorage, Alaska Mary Peltola’s campaign to represent Alaska in the US Senate has taken her to parts of the massive state’s interior that are inaccessible by road and on…

Blanche declines to say if Trump ordered him to file Alaska election lawsuit
Washington Examinerright§

Attorney General Todd Blanche declined to detail the circumstances leading up to the Department of Justice filing a lawsuit challenging the results of Alaska’s Senate race because two candidates share the same name. Blanche appeared on two different programs Sunday morning and was asked about President Donald Trump saying he directed the…

Trump’s Election Attacks Enter New Pre-emptive Phase Justice Department sues over a Senate race Republicans haven't lost yet
The New York Timesmainstream§

A lawsuit by the Justice Department challenging a potential narrow loss by the GOP Senate incumbent in Alaska reflects a new tactic by the president to try to shape the election results.

Blanche defends DoJ’s pre-emptive suit to block Alaska Senate results certification Trump claims credit for DOJ's bid to block Alaska election certification
The Guardianmainstream§

US attorney general calls CNN ‘crazy’ for suggesting Trump’s attempt to overturn election could lead to January 6 repeat Sign up for The Stakes 2026: your weekly guide to the US midterms Todd Blanche , Donald Trump ’s attorney general, lashed out during an interview on Sunday while defending the justice department’s pre-emptive lawsuit…

· Trump urges Alaskans to repeal ranked choice voting: ‘Damn bad cheating’ from the morgue, 14 Oct 2026

· Trump knocks Alaska voting system: 'How stupid are we to do this?' from the morgue, 9 Oct 2026

· Fish, Oil and Corruption: 6 Takeaways From Alaska’s Senate Debate from the morgue, 16 Oct 2026

· Trump administration sued over plans to send election monitors to voting sites from the morgue, 7 Oct 2026

· Election deniers stoke Trump-driven ballot security fears before midterms from the morgue, 6 Oct 2026

This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front. The byline is a pen name for a column drafted by a machine and checked by the editor: how this is made.