'And so it begins': Americans brace as Trump preemptively launches first midterm challenge

Critics sounded the alarm Friday after the Trump administration launched its first legal challenge to results of the midterms, more than a week before Election Day.

“And so it begins,” warned Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Julie K. Brown.

On Thursday, the Justice Department filed a lawsuit seeking to prevent Alaska state officials from certifying election results if Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK) loses his reelection bid. The core of the DOJ’s complaint lies with the confusion, the agency argued, that voters may have with two candidates named Sullivan on the ballot.

Sullivan is facing a tight race against his Democratic opponent, former U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola, who recent polls show holding a slight edge. However, a former teacher and fishing enthusiast named Dan J. Sullivan is also vying for the seat, prompting outrage among Republicans that the near-identical names could spark confusion among voters.

In its lawsuit, the DOJ seeks to delay Alaska’s certification of the election results if Sullivan — the Republican incumbent — loses, arguing that the second Sullivan’s inclusion on the ballot would likely “confuse or mislead voters looking to cast a vote for Senator Sullivan, and thus distort the will of Alaskan voters.” As such, the DOJ continued, there was a “substantial likelihood that a certification of the election will reflect an electoral process that lacked integrity.”

“This is it. Violent White Supremacists are overthrowing this election right now,” warned Jerry Quickley, a Los Angeles-based scholar, poet and playwright.

A number of critics echoed Brown’s ominous warning that President Donald Trump’s midterm election meddling had officially begun: “And so it begins,” warned journalist Isaac Saul; “here we goooooooo,” wrote political strategist Tré Easton.

“This is the cheating we have been raising concerns about,” wrote longtime Democratic strategist and former Biden administration adviser Neera Tanden. “A weaponized DOJ to help the GOP win elections. The only thing that will beat them is a massive vote against them.”