President Donald Trump lashed out at Sen. Lisa Murkowski for speaking out against his administration’s push to refuse to certify the election results unless Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan wins the race in Alaska.
“The Republicans’ Worst Senator, by far, Lisa Murkowski, of the Great State of Alaska,” Trump wrote late Saturday on Truth Social.
There are two Dan Sullivans running for Senate on Alaska’s ballot: incumbent Dan S. Sullivan and a retired schoolteacher Daniel J. Sullivan Jr., an independent candidate whom Republicans have accused of being in cahoots with Democrats to pull votes away from the sitting senator. Dan S. Sullivan is locked in a close race with Democratic nominee Mary Peltola.
Trump took credit for pushing the Justice Department to file a lawsuit on Thursday threatening state officials with legal repercussions unless Dan S. Sullivan wins reelection. Murkowski denounced the legal complaint, saying the DOJ “should never have filed this lawsuit.”
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“Alaskans don’t need any help voting for their preferred candidates, and the State of Alaska has already handled this by clearly distinguishing the candidates on this year’s ballot,” Murkowski wrote Friday on X.
Alaska’s ballot includes “(Registered Republican) Incumbent” after Dan S. Sullivan’s name and has no designation after Dan J. Sullivan. But Trump does not think that distinction makes things clear enough for voters, saying Democrats are “outright cheating” by allegedly putting Dan J. Sullivan on the ballot.
“At least let him use the name Senator Dan Sullivan as opposed to incumbent, because a lot of people don’t know what incumbent means,” Trump told reporters Sunday.
The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and the Alaskans for Mary campaign filed a motion Friday to stop the Trump administration from blocking the election results.
On Sunday, Attorney General Todd Blanche defended the Justice Department’s lawsuit, even though Alaska’s state Supreme Court ruled in June that Daniel J. Sullivan could remain on the ballot.
“What’s the crime? Well, it depends,” Blanche said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “There could be a crime, but the real wrong here is that Alaskans are going to be confused and will not have their vote heard.”
Trump said Murkowski only won her election because of ranked-choice voting — which is a system that allows voters to rank their preferred candidates. If their vote cannot help their top choice win, their vote is applied to their second choice and so on.
“They’ve been trying to get rid of Lisa Murkowski forever in Alaska, then she came up with the Ranked Choice Voting SCAM, and pulled a nice hot iron out of the fire,” Trump wrote in another Truth Social post Saturday night. “Everyone thought she came in second or third, but then she ‘won.’ Miracles happen!”
Alaska has used ranked-choice voting since 2022, and Murkowski actually held a narrow lead over her opponents in the Senate election with 43% of the first choice votes before any ranking transfers had been made.
“The Ranked Choice Voting Ballot is a TOTAL DEMOCRAT SCAM meant to confuse the Voter, so that Senator Dan Sullivan will lose Votes to a man who has never participated in Politics before,” Trump wrote.
The president also encouraged Alaska to vote to repeal the voting system for state and federal elections through a ballot measure on Election Day.
Murkowski has broken with Trump several times since the start of his second term in office, sometimes serving as swing vote in the Senate for the president’s key policy goals. Last year, Murkowski voted against Pete Hegseth’s nomination for defense secretary and against Trump’s tariffs on Canada. The Alaska senator has also stood against Trump for renaming Mount Denali, the original name of her state’s highest peak, Mount McKinley.
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