President Donald Trump on Thursday called for votes cast for two candidates in Alaska’s unresolved U.S. Senate race to be handed to Republican Senator Dan Sullivan, a proposal that an Alaska legal expert told Newsweek has no basis under the state’s election law. There is no other fair solution!” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
The “Fake Dan Sullivan” is an apparent reference to Daniel J. Sullivan Jr., a retired teacher whose presence on the ballot alongside the incumbent has fueled months of legal and political controversy. Trump’s reference to the “other ‘slug’” appears to mean Republican candidate Gerald Heikes, the only other named candidate besides Democrat Mary Peltola and the two Sullivans.
But under Alaska’s ranked-choice voting system, those votes cannot simply be assigned to Senator Sullivan. Asked whether Alaska election officials have any legal mechanism to add all the votes cast for Heikes and Daniel J. Sullivan Jr. to the senator’s total regardless of voters’ subsequent rankings, Jeff Feldman, a University of Washington law professor who has litigated extensively in Alaska, told Newsweek: “No.
Alaska law is crystal clear on the proper procedure for tabulating votes.” Newsweek has contacted the White House, Gerald Heikes and Dan Sullivan, Mary Peltola and Daniel J. Sullivan Jr. campaigns for comment. Peltola held a thin lead in the latest unofficial results Thursday, with 102,962 votes, or 48.2 percent, to 102,325, or 47.9 percent, for Senator Dan Sullivan.
Heikes had 4,846 votes, or about 2.3 percent, while Daniel J. Sullivan Jr. had 3,600, or about 1.7 percent. That leaves the Democrat only 637 votes ahead of the incumbent, while more than 8,000 first-choice votes went to the two lower-performing candidates.
Neither Peltola nor Dan Sullivan currently has a majority. Under Alaska’s ranked-choice system, if no candidate wins more than 50 percent of first-choice votes, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated. Ballots for that candidate then transfer to the voter’s next-ranked remaining choice, if the voter listed one.
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