Trump Calls for Alaska Senate Votes to Be Reassigned to Sen. Sullivan
A sitting president's public demand that certified votes be transferred between candidates has no established legal mechanism under Alaska or federal election law, placing the statement outside...
President Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social on Thursday, November 5, 2026, that votes cast in the Alaska Senate race for what he described as a "Fake Dan Sullivan" and an unnamed other candidate should be "immediately given" to incumbent Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan, according to a report by the Washington Examiner. Trump also wrote, "The Election is over. He easily wins. There is no other fair solution."
The statement refers to a ballot-name confusion dynamic in Alaska's 2026 Senate race. The specific identity of the candidate Trump labeled "Fake Dan Sullivan" and the candidate he called a "slug" was not fully detailed in the available source material. The names of all candidates on the Alaska Senate ballot, their party affiliations, and the current certified vote totals are not confirmed in the source material reviewed for this report. Those figures would appear in Alaska Division of Elections official canvass records.
Trump's Truth Social post did not cite any legal authority for the proposed transfer of votes. No provision of Alaska Statutes Title 15 (Elections) or federal law under 52 U.S.C. Governing federal elections authorizes the reassignment of votes cast for one candidate to another candidate based on a presidential declaration or on grounds of voter confusion. The Alaska Division of Elections and the Alaska Supreme Court are the bodies with jurisdiction over election disputes in the state.
A ballot-name confusion claim, if filed formally, would typically proceed through an election contest under Alaska Stat. Section 15.20.540, which requires a written complaint filed with the superior court. No such filing was confirmed in the source material available as of the publication of this report. Whether any candidate or party has initiated a formal contest is unknown. Court filings from the Alaska Superior Court would be the public record that would answer that question.
Trump's post did not specify a legal theory, name a court, or reference a pending administrative proceeding. The White House did not issue a formal statement elaborating on the claim, based on information available to this publication at the time of filing.
The Alaska Senate seat held by Dan Sullivan, a Republican first elected in 2014 and reelected in 2020, was among the competitive races in the 2026 midterm cycle. As previously reported by The Congressional Times, Democrats won the House and Senate in the 2026 midterms, making individual Senate races in states such as Alaska consequential to the final margin of control in the upper chamber.
Alaska uses a ranked-choice voting system for statewide federal races, adopted by voters through Ballot Measure 2 in November 2020. Under that system, voters rank candidates in order of preference, and if no candidate reaches a majority in the first round, the lowest vote-getters are eliminated and their ballots are redistributed according to ranked preferences. The Alaska Division of Elections conducts that tabulation according to procedures set out in Alaska Stat. Section 15.15.350. No element of that statute provides for a presidential directive to transfer votes.
Trump made similar public statements regarding election results following the 2020 presidential election and during the 2022 midterm cycle. In both instances, courts consistently dismissed election-contest claims that lacked evidentiary support in the record. A database maintained by the Election Law Clinic at Harvard Law School tracked more than 60 post-2020 election cases; the overwhelming majority were dismissed at the pleading stage for lack of standing or failure to state a claim, according to public court dockets.
The specific vote margin in the Alaska Senate race, the number of ballots attributed to any candidate with a name similar to Dan Sullivan, and whether ranked-choice tabulation has been completed are all unknown based on source material available at publication time. The Alaska Division of Elections official canvass report, expected within 15 days of the election under Alaska Stat. Section 15.15.370, would provide those figures.
What remains unanswered: whether any formal election contest has been filed in Alaska Superior Court, what the certified or unofficial vote totals show for each candidate in the race, and whether the Republican Party of Alaska or the Sullivan campaign has separately sought any legal remedy. Those facts would appear in Alaska Division of Elections records, Alaska Superior Court filings, and any Federal Election Commission communication records related to the race.