President Trump has a simple answer for Alaska’s razor-thin Senate race: hand the votes from the “Fake Dan Sullivan” to the real one and call it a day.
“The vote totals for the Fake Dan Sullivan, plus the other ‘slug’ that the Dems put on the Ballot, should be immediately given to the REAL Dan Sullivan, and the Election is over – He easily wins. There is no other fair solution!” Trump wrote Thursday morning on Truth Social.
Where the race stands
Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan is trailing Democrat Mary Peltola by roughly 600 votes in Alaska’s first-choice count, according to tallies reported Thursday by Newsmax and others, with tens of thousands of early and absentee ballots still to be counted.
The other “Sullivan” on the ballot, retired Petersburg teacher Daniel J. Sullivan Jr., has drawn about 3,600 votes, around 1.7%. Republican Gerald Heikes, the candidate Trump appeared to call a “slug,” has about 4,800. Together, those two candidates have far more first-choice votes than the gap between Sen. Sullivan and Peltola.
Why Republicans cry foul
The second Sullivan has been a flashpoint for months. The New York Times reported before the election that senior advisers to Peltola’s campaign coordinated with people to recruit him and tried to draw more candidates into the race. Peltola’s campaign and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee deny any involvement.
Sen. Sullivan’s campaign said “Alaskans deserve the truth” and accused the Peltola campaign of colluding with the DSCC and party lawyers. The Republican National Committee said a super PAC coordinating with a campaign would break federal campaign-finance law.
The Justice Department went to court in October, arguing the second Sullivan’s presence on the ballot threatened “to mislead Alaskan citizens who want to vote for Senator Sullivan,” and asked to block certification of a result potentially affected by voter confusion. A federal judge dismissed that bid, and the department has appealed. It has also sent target letters to Democratic operatives in a related investigation.
The second Sullivan initially filed as a Republican before switching to undeclared, and the Alaska Supreme Court upheld a decision allowing him on the ballot. He appears as “Daniel J. Sullivan Jr.” with no party listed.
What happens next
Alaska uses ranked-choice voting. If no candidate tops 50% of first-choice votes, the last-place finisher is eliminated and those ballots move to each voter’s next choice, round by round, until someone has a majority. That tabulation is scheduled for Nov. 18, and results are set to be certified Nov. 25.
Sen. Sullivan’s campaign has released its own simulation suggesting ranked-choice transfers could put him about 328 votes ahead. That is a campaign estimate, not an official result.
For now, the race remains uncalled. And Trump has made it clear which Sullivan he thinks Alaskans actually meant to vote for.