President Donald Trump demanded Thursday that votes cast for two other Alaska Senate candidates be awarded to Republican incumbent Dan S. Sullivan, escalating a ballot controversy with the senator trailing Democrat Mary Peltola by just 637 votes.
The race remains uncalled, and the initial count does not settle the outcome under Alaska’s ranked-choice voting system.
“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,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, asserting there was “no other fair solution!”
With roughly 75% of the estimated vote counted Thursday morning, Peltola had 102,962 votes, or 48.2%, to Sullivan’s 102,325 votes, or 47.9%.
Independent Daniel J. Sullivan Jr. had 3,600 votes, or 1.7%, more than five times the gap between the leading candidates. Another Republican, Gerald Heikes, had 4,846 votes, or 2.3%.
The similar names have fueled Republican accusations that the independent’s candidacy was designed to confuse voters and siphon support from the incumbent. Peltola has denied that her campaign recruited the contender.
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Under Alaska’s system, voters can rank candidates in order of preference. If no candidate receives a majority of first-choice votes, the last-place candidate is eliminated and ballots supporting that candidate move to the next-ranked remaining choice, if one is marked. The process continues until a candidate has a majority of the active ballots.
That means Sullivan could pick up votes from eliminated candidates, depending on how their supporters ranked the field.
The ranked-choice tabulation is scheduled for Nov. 18. Alaska accepts qualifying absentee ballots mailed from within the United States up to 10 days after Election Day and overseas ballots up to 15 days afterward. Those ballots must be postmarked by Election Day.
The stakes extend beyond Alaska, even with Democrats already projected to take control of both chambers of Congress.
Democrats have secured 54 Senate seats and could finish with 56 if Peltola wins and Democrat Scott Colom defeats Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith in Mississippi. Both races remain uncalled.
Even a 56-seat majority would leave Democrats short of the 60 votes generally needed to overcome a filibuster on most legislation, requiring some Republican support to advance those measures.
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