Whoever said everything is bigger in Texas hasn’t been to Alaska. The Last Frontier is bigger than Texas, California and Montana combined.

The largest national park in the country is in Alaska. Its name is one of my favorites: Wrangell–St. Elias.

But Alaska’s size is more than a point of pride. It also makes voting there remarkably hard. The state’s beautiful but isolated landscape creates complications for voters, and dozens of polling places are in towns without road access.

Voting by mail isn’t simple either, as extreme weather can cause days-long delays. In some remote villages, polling places without election workers fail to open at all.

Though the networks still haven’t called Alaska’s Senate race, it is clear that Mary Peltola is poised to win and become the 56th member of the Senate Democratic caucus come January.

Peltola’s likely victory and its close margin prove two truths. First, every vote matters, and the fight to ensure every vote is counted is essential to democracy. Second, Democrats can win anywhere they have the candidates and resources to compete.

Sadly, Alaska’s elections have also been the target of one of Donald Trump’s fiercest attacks, and he is showing no signs of letting up.

Less than two weeks before Election Day, Trump’s Department of Justice sued to block Alaska from certifying Peltola as the winner if she defeated Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan. My firm, Elias Law Group, intervened on behalf of the Peltola campaign and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee to fight back.

We won: two days before the election, a federal judge dismissed the case. The DOJ has appealed but seems in a hurry to further litigate their defeat.

Then the Trump DOJ launched criminal investigations without being able to confirm that any crime had been committed. In the days before the election, the DOJ leaked that I was among its targets.

Trump has targeted me before. He hates me because I fight and win.

After the 2020 election, I helped lead the legal effort that defeated him and his allies more than 60 times. My firm just helped Scott Colom unseat Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith and win Mississippi’s U.S. Senate race. Now we are fighting in Alaska.

I have no doubt that Trump’s hatred of me is only growing. I wear his scorn as a badge of honor.

But even the best legal work won’t protect democracy from Trump’s lies and smears. That requires pro-democracy platforms and outlets that tell the truth without fear or compromise.

Democracy Docket covered the count in Mississippi from start to finish, and now its team is on the ground in Alaska. The team is watching and reporting closely, bringing readers daily updates and insights as the race unfolds.

I created Democracy Docket for exactly this kind of moment. While other outlets offer horse-race coverage and both-sides analysis, Democracy Docket covers free and fair elections every day of the year through an uncompromisingly pro-democracy lens.

We shine a light on the voting rights fights the national spotlight misses. It breaks down court cases months before Election Day and follows stories years before they reach the front pages of legacy media.

After much discussion, Democracy Docket has decided to keep its paywall down, as it has been since Election Day, until the Alaska race is called. This was not an easy decision.

But as Trump and the GOP continue to spread lies about this election, the stakes are too high to keep anything behind a paywall.

If you can, please consider becoming a premium member.

Members keep Democracy Docket’s website and podcasts free for everyone and make it possible to keep the paywall down as the fight for Alaska continues. They also get my written analysis: what’s happening in the courts, what each ruling means for the next election, and where the fight is headed before anyone else is talking about it.

If you’ve been reading my analysis since the paywall came down on Election Day, you already know what you’d be missing.

If you can’t upgrade right now, I understand. As always, thank you for being a subscriber and reader. But if you do, I would deeply appreciate it.

All eyes are on Alaska today, but at Democracy Docket, we will keep our eyes trained on the Last Frontier every day.

The battle for free and fair elections does not end when the networks make their call. It lives on as long as we are willing to fight.