Post from Truth Social

A namesake candidate becomes a stolen election

The post went up at 11:13 p.m. Eastern on Saturday, October 24 (daylight time runs until November 1). Whether he was in Washington or at Mar-a-Lago, both are on Eastern time, so this was late at night. The graphic attached to it shows a sample Alaska Senate ballot with two Sullivans on it, "Sullivan, Dan S. (Registered Republican) Incumbent" and "Sullivan, Daniel J. Jr." with no party, under a red "SCAM!" banner. The text bundles three grievances into one paragraph: Murkowski's reaction to his earlier attack on ranked-choice voting, the namesake candidate, and the Ballot Measure 2 repeal vote.

The argument rests on a swap of causes. The voter confusion the image shows comes from two people with nearly the same name on one ballot. That would happen under plurality voting too. Yet the post blames it on "the Ranked Choice Voting Ballot," calling it "a TOTAL DEMOCRAT SCAM meant to confuse the Voter." A real local oddity (Alaska's Division of Elections did try to remove the namesake, and a court kept him on) gets turned into proof of a partisan plot against the voting system. Then it is escalated to "the Democrats want to steal the Election" and "this impending, tragic crime." The crime is placed in the future and stated as near-certain, which frames any Sullivan loss as stolen before a vote is counted. That is preemptive delegitimization.

Murkowski as the disloyal insider

The trigger is named in the post: Murkowski "is upset because I revealed what everyone knows." Public criticism from a Republican senator is the injury, and the reply is all devaluation: "The Republicans' Worst Senator, by far," "a DISGRACE to Alaska and our Country," "You just don't get any worse!" Her legitimacy is attacked at its source ("only got elected because of Corrupt Ranked Choice Voting"). Then comes a motive he cannot know: "Murkowski probably wants that to happen, not wanting the DOJ to file a Lawsuit." The word "probably" is the only hedge in the paragraph. It lets him attribute a wish for an election crime to a sitting senator of his own party without claiming it outright. This is splitting at the level of the party itself: Sullivan is the loyal Republican, Murkowski is lumped in with the "Dumocrats." Paranoid features show in that move, where disagreement over an election rule becomes complicity in theft.

The gift and its withdrawal

The long parenthetical is the most idiosyncratic part of the post. In the middle of the opening attack, he stops to say Alaska is "A State for which I produced, on a continuing basis, Billions and Billions of Dollars, and which Crooked Joe Biden and the Dumocrats had totally shut down — Then I came back, and delivered even more!" It is a compact redemption story with himself as the agent: prosperity, Biden's shutdown, his return, more prosperity. Later he repeats it as "I have delivered more for Alaska than I have for any other State." The close turns that redemption into a conditional threat: "if that happens, everything we've done for Alaska will come to an immediate hault." Benefits are cast as personal gifts that can be withdrawn if the state's voters choose wrongly. "All I'm asking for is a FAIR AND HONEST ELECTION!" puts a modest-sounding request on top of the threat, a pairing of entitlement and coercion. The grandiose state (the producer of billions) and the aggrieved state (the benefactor betrayed by a disloyal senator) alternate within a few lines.

Defenses: projection is the most likely reading of the "steal the Election" framing. The complaint is about a ballot that might cost his candidate votes, and it is recast as the other side's theft. Distortion is plain in the RCV causation swap. Rationalization appears in "FAIR AND HONEST," which presents a partisan repeal campaign as a neutral appeal for integrity.

Rhetorical construction

Familiar devices: the epithet "Crooked Joe Biden," the coinage "Dumocrats," "Billions and Billions," honorific capitals ("the Great State of Alaska," "the Great People of Alaska"), and an ALL-CAPS call to action ("VOTE 'YES' AGAINST RANKED CHOICE VOTING, on Ballot Measure 2. SAVE ALASKA!"). The image does the work of an exhibit, and "SCAM!" in red supplies the verdict before the reader has looked at the ballot. The post names a private citizen, "Daniel J. Sullivan, Jr.," a former teacher, and says he is "only there because the Democrats want to steal the Election." It sits next to reported DOJ grand jury subpoenas and Trump's September suggestion that DOJ might bring a case. A head of state is casting a specific private individual as the instrument of an "impending, tragic crime" and calling for federal legal action. That is the main basis for the elevated danger rating. There is no violent imagery and no call to physical action, so the risk lies in pointing supporters' hostility at a named, unprotected person, not in mobilization.

Who wrote it

Several markers point to Trump himself: the 11 p.m. timing, the misspelling "hault," the sentence-length parenthetical that hijacks the opening attack, the awkward blend "VOTE 'YES' AGAINST RANKED CHOICE VOTING" (yes on a repeal merged with "against" RCV), "probably" as a speculative aside, and the habitual "President DONALD J. TRUMP" sign-off. The policy content is accurate in one place: Ballot Measure 2 is the right number, and "yes" is the repeal side. Campaign staff could have supplied that detail. The image is a prepared graphic, probably made by staff or allies, and it fits the text closely, so this may have been a coordinated campaign item that he wrote up himself.

Language

"Hault" for "halt" and the "YES AGAINST" blend are mild production slips. Neither is outside his documented baseline: misspellings and stacked parentheticals appear in his 2012-2016 tweets as well. The parenthetical runs long (about 40 words inserted between a subject and its verb), but he returns to the original sentence afterward ("who only got elected because..."), so the thread holds. No name confusion: he separates the two Sullivans correctly, even though they are the very confusion he is complaining about.

Claims against the record

Murkowski's 2022 win came with a narrow first-round lead (about 43.4% to Tshibaka's 42.6%), widened to 53.7% after ranked-choice tabulation. The top-four open primary arguably mattered more than ranking itself, but "only got elected because" overstates what the count shows. Biden's administration canceled ANWR leases and restricted NPR-A development, but it also approved the Willow project, so "totally shut down" is false as stated. RCV was adopted by Alaska voters in 2020, years before the namesake filed, and the namesake's effect does not depend on ranking.

Fact Verification

Circumstantial facts that support suspicion:

• He is a retired Petersburg teacher and former Forest Service employee. He registered as a Republican the same day he filed, three days before the deadline. He says he had been in the Alaskan Independence Party since 1980.
• He told a New York Times reporter (republished by Election Law Blog and DNYUZ) that he never voted for Trump, voted for the Democratic nominee in the last three presidential elections, voted for Mary Peltola in 2022 and 2024, and would probably prefer Peltola to the incumbent in November.
• FEC records found by Alaska's News Source show a Petersburg Dan Sullivan gave Peltola $100 in August 2022 and $30 in August 2024 through ActBlue.
• He hired Amber Lee to help file his candidacy and launch the campaign. Lee is a consultant who has worked for Democratic candidates and publicly backs Peltola. Her name is in the metadata of his launch press release. She is also an unpaid board member of the 907 Initiative, a progressive group that has spent over $1 million against Sen. Sullivan.
• The state Division of Elections removed him in June, finding his filing was not made in good faith.
• NBC and Reuters reported in July and August, citing unnamed sources, a state and federal investigation and grand jury subpoenas to witnesses tied to his campaign. The possible charges named were wire fraud and conspiracy against voting rights.
• On September 9, a Republican-linked group, Americans for Public Trust, filed an FEC complaint alleging he coordinated with the 907 Initiative.

What cuts against the claim:

• Anchorage Superior Court Judge Thomas Matthews ruled the removal unlawful because Alaska law has no 'good faith' standard. The Alaska Supreme Court upheld that ruling on June 29.
• The Peltola campaign, the Alaska Democratic Party and the DSCC all deny any involvement.
• Alaska's News Source called the small donations 'the only documented link' to Peltola and said no direct coordination by Peltola or her campaign has been established.
• The Times reporter who interviewed him found no case-closing evidence of a Democratic plot.
• The U.S. Attorney's Office has never confirmed the probe, and as of October 24 there were no charges or target letters.
• The FEC lacks a quorum, so the complaint is unresolved.
• The DOJ civil suit filed October 22 calls his candidacy 'frivolous' and aimed at helping Peltola. That is an allegation. AP and Alaska Public coverage say it does not lay out evidence of Democratic coordination, and legal experts give it little chance.
• The candidate says he is running on his own because he is unhappy with Sen. Sullivan's record.
• Running legally and drawing votes is not stealing an election. He got 2.5% (4,107 votes) in the August primary. Under ranked-choice voting, a confused voter can rank both Sullivans.

A liberal-leaning voter with a Democratic-aligned consultant may well hope to help Peltola. But the claim that he is there only because Democrats want to steal the election asserts a proven party plot and a crime. Neither has been shown, and both are denied. | | "A yes vote on Alaska Ballot Measure 2 is a vote against ranked-choice voting" | True | Ballot Measure 2 on the November 2026 general election ballot would repeal ranked-choice voting, the nonpartisan open primary, and 2020 campaign disclosure rules. A yes vote approves the repeal. A similar repeal failed in 2024, 49.9% to 50.1%. | | "Trump has delivered more for Alaska than for any other state" | Half True | No measure exists for ranking what a president has 'delivered' to each state, and no fact-checker has rated this claim. Still, there is real evidence that Alaska got unusually focused attention, along with real costs and credit that belongs to others.

What supports the claim:

• On January 20, 2025, Trump signed an Alaska-specific executive order, 'Unleashing Alaska's Extraordinary Resource Potential.'
• Interior opened 1.56 million acres of the ANWR coastal plain to leasing and reopened about 82% of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska.
• The Ambler Road was approved in October 2025. Old land orders were lifted in February 2026, and 1.4 million acres went to the state in May 2026 for Ambler Road and Alaska LNG.
• The White House's October 13, 2026 fact sheet lists more:
• $150 million in Defense Production Act money for a power line
• a South Korean pledge that includes $54 billion for an Alaska gas pipeline (Seoul says it is still judging whether the project pays)
• hundreds of millions in military construction
• Alaska's first-year Rural Health Transformation award was $272 million. That is second to Texas in total but the largest per person in the nation.
• Sen. Dan Sullivan has said 'no state fared better' from the 2025 budget law. That is a partisan claim, not a measured ranking.

What cuts against it:

• Several of the biggest Alaska wins in the 2025 law were negotiated by Lisa Murkowski, the senator this post attacks. They include the SNAP cost-share delay, the tax break for whaling captains, and raising the rural hospital fund to $50 billion. CNN and NPR covered how she won them.
• The rural health formula splits half the money equally among states ($100 million each). That alone favors small-population states like Alaska, whatever the president does.
• Much of the energy promise had not paid off by the post date. Interest in NPR-A leases has been low, the LNG project is not financed, and the road is not built.
• Federal policy also cost Alaska:
• The public broadcasting rescission hit rural and tribal Alaska stations that depend on it for up to half their budgets. Murkowski voted no.
• The Alaska Hospital and Healthcare Association estimates about 34,000 Alaskans will lose Medicaid.
• NOAA cuts, the trade fight with Canada, and diesel near $6 a gallon have squeezed fishermen.
• Alaska is not the only state singled out. Executive Order 14181, signed January 24, 2025, dealt with California water.

Alaska has had more targeted presidential attention than most states. But 'more than any other state' cannot be shown, and the claim leaves out both the costs and the share of credit owed to Congress. |

Overall Veracity: 32%