The Justice Department is intensifying its investigation into the recruitment of an opponent with the same name as a Republican senator in Alaska, sending letters to about 20 Democrats informing them they might be targets, two people with knowledge of the move said.
Sending such a notification at the decisive moment in a close race between the incumbent Republican, Dan Sullivan, and his Democratic opponent, Mary Peltola, is highly unusual. Democrats have accused the administration of weaponizing the department for political purposes. They say that recruiting candidates, called ballot stacking, is a common tactic in campaigns and not clearly illegal under state law.
The intended recipients of the letters include Marc Elias, a prominent elections lawyer whose firm has represented Ms. Peltola and other Democratic candidates, and at least one official at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, one of those people said.
The department is investigating possible donor fraud and conspiracy charges, the person added, on condition of anonymity to discuss a continuing inquiry.
It is not clear when the letters were sent or if all the intended recipients got them.
President Trump has publicly urged the department to take forceful action in Alaska. Over the weekend, he said Chuck Schumer, the Democratic leader in the Senate, and Mr. Elias should be held “criminally responsible” in the episode.
On Tuesday, he again called out Mr. Elias by name, saying he should be locked up.
“You had the Democrat Party headed up by Elias, their lawyer, who was a bad guy, very bad guy — should go to jail, in my opinion,” Mr. Trump said during a call-in interview on “Fox & Friends.” “But you had the Democrat Party look all over Alaska for somebody named Sullivan.”
Mr. Elias did not respond to a request for comment. But he posted Mr. Trump’s remarks about him on social media, stating, “This is not normal and yet here we are.”
A spokesman for the Democratic committee did not immediately respond to requests for comment. A Justice Department spokeswoman declined to comment.
Target letters are not proof of guilt. Many of the department’s investigations into Mr. Trump’s critics and adversaries have gone nowhere for lack of evidence, or been thrown out of court by judges and grand juries. And in the past, department leaders have taken procedural steps to publicly demonstrate to the White House that they are taking action.
“The criminal process is being abused for political purposes — if there was any doubt, just look at the timing,” said Norman Eisen, an Obama administration official who is suing the department over threatening letters it has sent elections officials in California in pursuit of its unsubstantiated claim that voting by noncitizens is widespread.
On Friday, Michael J. Heyman, the Trump-appointed U.S. attorney for Alaska, told reporters during a news conference in Anchorage that his office had spent the past few months quietly investigating the effort to recruit a man named Dan J. Sullivan, retired teacher from a fishing village, to appear alongside Dan S. Sullivan, the senator, on the November ballot.
The office intensified those efforts after the The New York Times reported that Democrats recruited the second Mr. Sullivan.
The department initially sought to intervene by suing to block the certification of the election in Alaska if Mr. Sullivan narrowly lost, the first time the Justice Department had sought to preemptively intervene in an election since the late 1960s.
A federal judge threw the case out on Sunday, saying the department had failed to show how blocking certification would “redress its alleged injury.”
The department is planning to appeal.
Reid J. Epstein contributed reporting.
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