Democratic Senate landslide shifts spotlight away from Alaska
The stunning national victories by Democrats in the U.S. Senate races won’t eliminate the Trump claims of corruption about the contest in Alaska, but they guarantee that the future control of the Senate doesn’t rest on whether Trump and Sen. Dan Sullivan will be pushing claims that if Sullivan loses it will be because of cheating by Mary Peltola.
Sullivan has spent the past few days claiming that thousands of Alaskans will be unable to tell which Sullivan is which on the ballot. But he only began making that claim when Trump began promoting that rigged election claim.
“The scheme is working,” Sullivan began to say, following Trump’s lead, claiming voters did not understand the meaning of the word incumbent.
It was a desperate ploy by Sullivan, as there is no confusion among voters who read the names on the ballot.
The Alaska election is vital to the future of Alaska, but not to the control of the U.S. Senate.
That is a good thing because a rational review of the second Sullivan’s role in the election is impossible, given Trump’s control over the Department of Justice and the repeated lies from Trump, Attorney General Todd Blanche and Sullivan.
There may still be a cloud over the Alaska Senate results, but it does not threaten the balance of power in Washington, D.C.
Trump will likely lose all interest in the Alaska race.
But if the final results show Sullivan losing, the incumbent will claim he was cheated. If Sullivan wins, he will claim the election results are fine.
I think that it was stupid of the Peltola campaign and the Democrats to try to recruit someone with the same name as Sullivan for the ballot.
I also think that Daniel J. Sullivan Jr. of Petersburg entered the race because he liked the idea, has toyed with it in the past and dislikes the incumbent senator. He’s a grown man capable of making his own decisions.
What took place was not illegal. And it was not Watergate 2.,0, the biggest scandal in the history of Alaska elections, as Sullivan wants Alaskans to believe.
I don’t know if the national results—a Blunami, as some as saying—will carry over to Alaska in the Senate and elect Peltola, but I believe many Alaskans voted as if Trump was on the ballot, as Trump requested.
Sullivan and Rep. Nick Begich the Third have cemented themselves to Trump when pitching themselves to the MAGA loyalists who control the Republican Party.
But Sullivan in particular has avoided mentioning Trump when trying to appeal to a broader audience, focusing his campaign entirely on how much federal money he has brought to the state.
We have yet to see how much the excess Trump baggage—the ballroom, the arch, the jet bribe, the reflecting pool, the massive corruption, tariffs, the senseless attacks on Canada, DOGE, the nonstop lying, the war with Iran, gas prices, his focus on men’s asses, his obvious mental decline, etc.—will drag down Sullivan and Begich.
The narrow appeal of Trumpism was widely rejected. The close margin in the Sullivan race shows that as well.
Trump immediately began claiming Tuesday night that the Republicans lost because he was not on the ballot, but not because of anything he did or didn’t do.
“I wasn’t on the Ballot and if I was, we would have won IN A LANDSLIDE!” he boasted.
“True to form, President Trump is already blaming everyone else, but he is the main architect of this rout,” the Trump friendly Wall Street Journal editorial page moaned.
“President Trump has spent the past two years trying to subvert American democracy. On Tuesday, voters stood up to him,” the New York Times said in an editorial.
If Sullivan and Begich manage to win, the next Congress will see them trying to inch away from Trump.
Sullivan told his supporters Tuesday that the “Lower 48, blue wave, but we’re different, right? All of us. We ran a great campaign relative to our opponent because of you, because of you.”
“Alaska is a force to be reckoned with,” Peltola told supporters. “We are standing up and taking our state back.”
We already know that Trump is the biggest loser. His losses are so widespread that any claims he makes about rigged elections will be easy to counter.
The Juneau Independent has early results here.
Alaska Public Media has live coverage here.
Here is the latest statewide summary from the Division of Elections.