Kathrine Frich
“There is no other fair solution!” the president said.
When a race comes down to the wire, every single ballot counts.
Voters expect a straightforward contest when they head to the polls, yet politics often brings unexpected twists.
Sometimes, the biggest headache on election night comes down to a simple name on a piece of paper.
Two names on one ballot
According to the Polish Press Agency, US President Donald Trump wants election officials in Alaska to hand votes from two minor candidates directly to Republican incumbent Senator Dan Sullivan. Writing on Truth Social on Thursday, the president argued that two rival contenders only existed to confuse voters during the midterm elections.
“The votes cast for the fake Dan Sullivan and the other fake figurehead that the Democrats put on the ballot should be immediately transferred to the real Dan Sullivan,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
“Then the matter is clear, Dan Sullivan wins easily. There is no other fair solution!” the president added in his Truth Social post.
The controversy centres on an unknown contender named Daniel J. Sullivan Jr., along with another Republican candidate, Gerald Heikes.
The New York Times reported that Democrats talked both men into joining the race to pull support away from the sitting senator. While both major parties have used this legal tactic before, state and federal prosecutors have started criminal probes, even after the Alaska Supreme Court allowed the second Sullivan onto the ballot.
A razor-thin margin
With roughly 74 percent of ballots tallied, the Polish Press Agency noted that Democrat and former congresswoman Mary Peltola holds 48.2 percent to Senator Sullivan’s 47.9 percent. That gap equals just 637 votes. Meanwhile, Heikes sits at 2.3 percent and the other Sullivan holds 1.7 percent.
On Thursday, Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy warned that counting will take a while, with major ballot drops scheduled for Tuesday and next Friday. If nobody clears 50 percent under Alaska’s ranked voting rules, second-choice picks from the eliminated candidates will go to the leaders.
The New York Times and VoteHub expect the remaining uncounted ballots to help Peltola, while an Alaska Beacon breakdown suggests ranked transfers from the minor candidates could give Senator Sullivan around 860 extra votes.
A wider Democratic wave
Across the country, only Alaska and Mississippi still have undecided Senate contests, according to the Polish Press Agency.
In Mississippi, Democratic US Attorney Scott Colom holds a surprise 724-vote lead over Republican Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith, and analysts favour his chances.
Even without those two seats, Democrats have already won Senate control with at least 54 out of 100 seats.
They also flipped the House of Representatives, holding 247 seats to 153 for the Republicans, while NBC News projects a final tally of 259 Democratic seats, the widest House margin for either party since 1990.
