President Donald Trump has made a jaw-dropping election demand in a bizarre Truth Social rant.
After the Democratic Party steamrolled the Republicans in the midterms, the 80-year-old seemed resigned to his fate, telling Politico’s Dasha Burns on a phone call that he intends to work with the opposition party.
But the president is back in tantrum mode, ranting and raving about the Alaska elections and suggesting that Democratic votes should be flipped for his pick, the “REAL Dan Sullivan.”
“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!” he demanded on Thursday morning.
His screed follows a New York Times report that alleged that operatives linked to Democrat Mary Peltola’s campaign worked to recruit a second, progressive candidate named Dan Sullivan (Dan J. Sullivan) to run in the Alaska U.S. Senate election against the GOP pick, the incumbent Dan S. Sullivan.
In his winner-take-all consolidation, he is demanding that election officials simply hand all votes cast for the namesake and “slug” Gerald Heikes, a minor candidate running as a Republican, to the Republican Sullivan.
But despite Trump’s cries of what is “fair,” Alaska law counts every vote for the candidate the voter picked, and a judge has already thrown out the Justice Department’s bid to set ballots aside.
Because of the state’s ranked-choice voting system—which triggers a secondary counting stage if no candidate receives more than 50 percent of the vote—the final outcome of the Senate race could take weeks to determine. Alaska officials expect to begin the ranked-choice count on Nov. 18.
The Associated Press reports that the race is a nail-biter, with Democrat Mary Peltola leading Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan, 48.2 percent to 47.9 percent, a 637-vote margin, with 75 percent of the vote counted as of early Thursday.
The second Dan Sullivan, a former teacher, has 3,600 votes, more than enough to put his namesake ahead if Trump’s demand became a reality.
The “slug,” Heikes, has 4,846 votes, per AP.
Trump claims Democrats intentionally put Heikes on the ballot by having Democratic candidate David Leslie drop out, which automatically elevated Heikes—the next-highest vote-getter—to the general election under Alaska election rules.
Trump claims Democrats engineered this dropout on purpose to trick voters and split the conservative vote.
