The potential Senate fight

 The Hill -  Senators are bracing for a potential floor fight over accepting the results of the Alaska Senate race between incumbent Sen. Dan Sullivan (R) and former Rep. Mary Peltola (D) — and perhaps other battleground contests — if President Trump urges allies to dispute what he might view as unfair or “rigged” results.

Democratic senators generally view Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) as a straight shooter who would be averse to rejecting an election result in an Alaska Senate race certified by the governor and lieutenant governor.

But they aren’t ruling out the possibility that the president will prod his MAGA allies in the Senate to contest the election results if Sen. Dan Sullivan loses by a narrow margin and blames his loss on voter confusion leading to a significant number of votes for his opponent with a similar name, Daniel J. Sullivan Jr.

If Alaska’s top officials certify Peltola as the winner, and Trump calls on Senate allies to reject that finding, it puts Thune in a tough spot and potentially sets up a messy floor fight.

“Everybody is gaming everything out, and everybody is preparing for everything,” a Senate Democratic aide said of the preparations for potential Republican objections if Peltola narrowly beats the incumbent Republican senator.

Sarah Binder, a professor of political science at George Washington University and a Senate rules expert, said Trump’s aggressive threat to challenge a Democratic win in Alaska could lead to a nasty Senate floor fight.

“We can’t rule anything out at this stage just given the president’s single-minded persistence that there’s a lot of electoral fraud conducted by Democrats,” she said.