Trump Pushes to Hand Alaska’s “Extra” Senate Votes to Dan Sullivan

On Thursday, former President Donald Trump took to Truth Social and demanded that Alaska’s unresolved Senate race be declared over. He argued that the first‑choice votes for Gerald Heikes and the so‑called “Fake Dan Sullivan” should simply be added to incumbent Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan’s total, declaring that “the election is over – he easily wins.”

Trump’s post referred to Daniel J. Sullivan Jr., a retired teacher who has been listed on the ballot alongside the real Dan Sullivan, and to Gerald Heikes, a Palmer‑based minister‑turned‑drywall contractor who barely scraped into the general election. Both candidates have been described by critics as “slug” or “decoy” entries, but under Alaska’s ranked‑choice voting system there is no shortcut that lets officials move their votes straight onto Sullivan’s column.

University of Washington law professor Jeff Feldman, who has litigated election cases in Alaska for years, told Newsweek the state’s statutes are crystal‑clear: “Alaska law dictates exactly how votes are to be tabulated. There is no legal mechanism to bulk‑transfer those votes to another candidate.”

At the moment, the unofficial count shows Democrat Mary Peltola holding a razor‑thin lead—102,962 votes (48.2 %) to Sullivan’s 102,325 (47.9 %). Heikes has 4,846 first‑choice votes (about 2.3 %) and Daniel J. Sullivan Jr. 3,600 (roughly 1.7 %). That leaves a margin of just 637 votes, while more than 8,000 ballots were cast for the two lower‑performing candidates.

Because no contender has crossed the 50 % threshold, Alaska’s ranked‑choice process will kick in on Nov. 18. The candidate with the fewest first‑choice votes will be eliminated, and those ballots will be redistributed according to each voter’s next preference. Some of those votes could ultimately boost Sullivan, some could help Peltola, and some may simply be exhausted if voters didn’t rank anyone else.

Trump’s insistence on a blanket transfer ignores those nuances. “If you ignore the rankings, you’re basically rewriting the constitution,” Feldman warned. “But the statute is unambiguous, so the constitutional issue never even gets a hearing.”

Who is Gerald Heikes, anyway? He’s a perennial candidate from Palmer who has run for governor, the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives over the past decade. He finished fifth in Alaska’s August top‑four primary with about 1 % of the vote, yet he slipped onto the November ballot after Democrat David Leslie withdrew, opening a slot for a fourth‑place finisher.

Heikes has hinted at being coaxed into the race by an unnamed benefactor, a claim he recounted to The New York Times. Both the Peltola campaign and the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee have flatly denied any effort to recruit “slug” candidates to split the Republican vote.

The controversy over the “fake” Sullivan dates back to the summer, when Alaska’s Division of Elections initially tried to pull him from the ballot, deeming his candidacy a deliberate ploy to confuse voters. A state judge overturned that move, saying the agency overstepped its authority, and the Alaska Supreme Court let the name stay on the slate. Daniel J. Sullivan Jr. insists he entered the race out of genuine frustration with the incumbent, not as a pawn.

Trump’s latest post marks an escalation in a saga that already involves federal investigations and a Justice Department lawsuit against Alaska. Whether his demand will sway anyone remains to be seen, but the clock is ticking toward the ranked‑choice recount, and every ballot could still tip the balance.