Apparently, voting for someone else still counts as voting for Republicans. Donald Trump is declaring victory in an election that has not yet been decided, and he is using his own version of electoral mathematics to do it. In a remarkably bold Truth Social post on Saturday afternoon, the president, 80, insisted that Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan was “substantially leading” in Alaska’s close Senate race, even though Democrat Mary Peltola is ahead in the vote count. Trump’s reasoning? The votes cast for two other candidates must simply be added to Sullivan’s total. “Daniel Sullivan is leading substantially in the Alaska Senate race. When you add Daniel (3,600, 1.68%) to Dan and Gerald Heikes (4,846, 2.27%), Senator Dan Sullivan is ahead by thousands of votes,” Trump began. Peltola leads with 48.17 percent of the vote, while Sullivan (Trump’s favorite) trails by less than 700 votes, with 47.88 percent. Donald Trump’s Social Truth post about the Alaska Senate elections. Truth Social/Donald Trump So far only 75 percent of the votes have been counted. Under Alaska’s ranked-choice voting system, if no candidate receives more than 50 percent of the vote, the lowest-ranked candidates are eliminated and their votes are redistributed based on voters’ next preferences. Get the Best of the Beast Subscribe to The Swamp News Newsletter Trump’s math ignores that crucial distinction. Votes do not automatically transfer to any candidate the president believes should receive them, and some may not transfer to any of the major party candidates. The race may not be decided until Nov. 18, when Alaska is scheduled to conduct its ranked-choice vote tabulation. That’s not soon enough for Trump, who has focused on alleged “voter fraud” in Alaska since before Election Day. Alaska. Another Dan Sullivan ran in both the primary and general elections, and his candidacy appears to have served as a spoiler. His candidacy faced repeated legal challenges, but courts and election officials consistently ruled that he could remain on the ballot. Daniel J. Sullivan Jr. is currently in fourth place with just 1.68 percent of the vote, far behind Dan S. Sullivan, who was identified on the ballot as the Republican incumbent. Trump’s position came just 24 hours after the president announced the promotion of Stephen Miller to White House chief of staff. And Miller has already weighed in on the Alaska race, calling it “one of the most egregious attacks on the integrity of American elections we have seen.” Miller, who was questioned by the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol attack about his role in encouraging the “Stop the Steal” movement, drafted part of the speech Trump gave at the Ellipse before rioters stormed the Capitol. Miller also argued on X last month that the Sullivan-Sullivan debacle “reveals pure contempt for voters” and placed the blame on Democrats. Stephen Miller’s post about Alaska in Peltola’s campaign has denied the allegation. Trump’s Saturday post also claimed that the independent candidate, Heikes, was fraudulent, without providing evidence, and declared that the race was “OVER.” President Donald Trump announced that he was promoting Stephen Miller to White House chief of staff in a Truth Social post on Friday afternoon. This should be immediate! Anyone who votes for Daniel J. Sullivan, Jr., a man who tried to change the initial of his middle name but couldn’t do it in time, and who was otherwise not political – he didn’t even vote – is a vote for Senator Dan Sullivan. The race for Alaska is OVER, BY FAR!” Social, stating that reallocating the independent candidate’s votes to Senator Sullivan was the only solution. “There is no other fair solution!” he opined. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 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