President Donald Trump held a rally for Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK) and other down-ballot Republicans in Wasilla, Alaska, Tuesday night, the first stop on a three-leg western campaign tour that will also take the president to Arizona and Montana.
Democrats have circled Alaska, a typically reliable Republican state, as a winnable seat in their bid to flip the Senate in the 2026 midterm elections. Democrats must win at least four seats to reclaim the majority in the Senate. Heading into Tuesday evening, former Rep. Mary Peltola, the Democratic candidate, held a 1.4-point advantage over Sullivan in the RealClearPolitics polling average.
Further complicating the math is the another Dan Sullivan who will be on the ballot next month. Trump and Republicans have consistently accused Democrats of abusing Alaska’s ranked choice voting system and backing the other Sullivan in a bid to confuse voters and pull votes away from the current sitting senator.
Trump quickly picked up that rhetoric Tuesday night.
“On Nov. 3, we’re going to send one of the best and most respected senators in D.C.: Dan Sullivan, the real, the real Dan Sullivan,” he opened. “I’m talking about the real Dan Sullivan, not the fake Dan Sullivan, not the Dan Sullivan put up by the Dumocrats.”
“It’s just cheating. They’re terrible,” the president continued. “They found a guy named Dan Sullivan. They put him up to get a little confused. And actually, by mistake, he got 2.4% That’s a lot. That’s too much. That could be the difference. So you got to remember Dan Sullivan, Republican incumbent.”
Later in the evening, Trump clarified that he refers to the incumbent Sullivan as “the real Dan Sullivan.”
“You know they went to court, and this guy said, ‘No, no, I just happened to be — I just wanted to run. I just wanted to run. But the middle initial was different, right?'” he riffed. “And yet, after the court case, he went and tried to change his middle initial to ‘S,’ right? What a group of crooked people. You can’t let it happen, because even if he gets a percent or 2% or 3% with the phony ranked choice stuff, you never know what they’re going to do with it.”
The other Dan Sullivan will appear on the ballot as “Daniel J. Sullivan.”
Trump specifically urged voters to repeal the “Dumocrat scam” of ranked choice voting, adding “you’ve got to terminate it and get it out” by supporting the state’s Ballot Measure 2.
“Any place you have ranked choice, you have damn bad cheating, and we can’t let that happen,” he declared.
The bulk of the president’s speech followed his typical rally format, including vouching for the war in Iran, touting his energy agenda, castigating the media for criticizing his tariffs and other economic policies, and promising voters that if Republicans hold on to both the House and Senate majorities, he will send every American adult citizen $5,000.
And Trump accused Peltola, a “whack job,” according to the president, of working with former President Joe Biden to harm Alaska’s oil and gas sector.
“She’s crazy or wacky or nasty or something, but she’s crazy. I hear crazy. Is it crazy that I read? Mary Peltola worked hand in hand with crooked Joe Biden to viciously crush Alaska’s energy, including ANWR,” he stated, drawing cheers from the crowd. “The production was brought all the way down to just a fraction, a fraction of the levels that we got used to, driving your energy bills up, your food costs up, your transportation through the roof, your everything went up. You know they blame me. They caused the highest prices in history, and then they start screaming ‘affordability.'”
“If you let Mary Peltola, who I hear is a nutshell, by the way, and the Democrats take power, they will slam the brakes on every single project that we have approved,” the president reiterated later in his remarks.
Near the tail end of his speech, the president sweetened the pot for Alaskan voters, noting that Sullivan has “worked with my administration to support rural broadband for Alaska,” before announcing that the Federal Communications Commission plans to vote later this month on an additional $162 million investment to expand high-speed internet in the state.
“[Sullivan] has worked hard to turn things around. We have brought hundreds of millions of dollars to the state. Thousands of people are newly connected. We have high-speed internet going across the state, but the job’s not done,” FCC Chairman Brendan Carr added after Trump called him to the stage. “We are committed to working with Sen. Sullivan until we can finish the job of getting every single person in Alaska connected to high-speed internet.”
TRUMP URGES ALASKANS TO REPEAL RANKED CHOICE VOTING: ‘DAMN BAD CHEATING’
The FCC news follows a September Oval Office event in which Trump announced a $54 billion natural gas pipeline project in Alaska bankrolled by South Korea, as Trump tries to get Sullivan over the finish line.
Over the final weeks of the 2026 cycle, Trump has and will continue to campaign heavily in red states, or at least MAGA strongholds within swing states. Following his western tour, the president will head to Dalton, Georgia, this weekend, followed by additional stops at a fundraiser at Mar-a-Lago in Florida and a rally in Kentucky.
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[ H/T Washington Examiner ]
