Trump Says Sen. Sullivan Should Get Votes for Same-Named Candidate in Alaska Senate Race

President Trump wrote Thursday that Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan should be given the votes cast for Dan J. Sullivan, a Senate candidate with the same name, in Alaska's undecided race against Democrat Mary Peltola. The race is being counted under ranked choice voting, and neither candidate appears on track to reach 50 percent. As of Thursday morning, the Associated Press count showed Sullivan trailing by 637 votes with 75 percent of the vote counted. A Sullivan campaign memo said Peltola led first choices by 626 votes, but that 8,404 ballots for Gerald Heikes and Daniel J. Sullivan Jr. would be eliminated and redistributed. It said Heikes voters who ranked another candidate favored Sullivan 71 percent to 29 percent, and it projected a 105,037 to 104,709 Sullivan win, a 328-vote margin, if the tabulation were run on current ballots. The memo alleged election cheating. Trump's Justice Department has sought to intervene, citing voter confusion, and recently sent target letters to Democratic operatives.

Breitbart and The Blaze, on the right, lead with Sullivan's confidence. Breitbart relays the campaign memo's vote math and its cheating claim, while The Blaze cites the AP count showing Sullivan behind and refers to an alleged decoy scheme. Neither excerpt mentions Trump's demand. Raw Story, on the left, leads with Trump's new demand, and its headline casts it as an effort to flip the race. The available text gives no further detail. Axios, the alternative outlet, reports the same Trump post and adds the Justice Department's intervention and target letters, which the right-leaning excerpts omit. The sides agree on the two-candidate margin and the same-name candidate, but differ on whether the focus is the vote count or Trump's intervention.