Trump orders lawsuit to stop Alaska result if GOP lose

US President Donald Trump on Friday said he ordered a Justice Department lawsuit seeking to prevent certification of Alaska's Senate election result if the Republican incumbent loses — ramping up questions over whether he will accept defeat in the midterms. "I'm the one that said, 'Do it,'" Trump announced during a trip to Florida, where he is due to cast his own early ballot for the November 3 election to decide control of Congress — currently in Republican hands. The extraordinary intervention by a president to launch a preemptive challenge against a possible election result casts a new shadow over the midterms. Trump — who tried to overthrow the 2020 presidential election after he lost to Democrat Joe Biden — has repeatedly questioned the validity of the upcoming election in which Democrats are forecasted to make big gains. If Democrats win the House of Representatives, as widely expected, they would be able to exert the first real brake on Trump's unprecedented exercise of power since he secured his second term two years ago. Democrats also have an outside chance of winning the Senate if they can flip a handful of Republican-held seats, including in Alaska, where incumbent Republican Senator Dan Sullivan faces Democrat Mary Peltola. She...