Trump Demanded Another Man's Votes Be Handed to Dan Sullivan

Photo: U.S. Senate / Public domain

There is a sentence that should stop you in your tracks. Donald Trump demanded that another man's votes be handed to Dan Sullivan. Not persuaded. Not earned. Handed. As if votes were property. As if an election were a transaction. As if the will of the people were something you could reassign with a phone call.

Here is what happened. Alaska has a Senate race. Dan Sullivan is the incumbent. Mary Peltola is the challenger, and she is leading. And Trump, watching the race slip away, did what he always does when he is losing. He demanded that the votes be handed over. Not that they be counted. Not that they be recounted. Handed. To his man. Because in Trump's mind, that is how elections work. You do not win them. You take them.

This is not a new idea. It is the same idea he had in 2020. The same idea he has had in every election he has ever lost. The votes belong to him. The election belongs to him. The country belongs to him. And when the voters disagree, the voters are wrong, and the votes should be handed to the person he prefers. That is not democracy. That is a demand for a coronation.

Let me be clear about what an election is. An election is the people deciding. Not a president. Not a party. Not a man with a phone. The people. They vote. The votes are counted. The winner is the person who got the most votes. That is the whole system. It is not complicated. It is not optional. And it does not have a provision for handing votes to your friend because you feel like it.

Sullivan is not innocent here. He is the beneficiary of the demand. He could have said no. He could have said, I want to win this race on my own merits, not because the president demanded my opponent's votes. He did not. He stayed silent, because silence is easier than principle. And silence, in this case, is complicity.

So what happens now? The votes stay where they are. They belong to the people who cast them. Peltola leads because Alaskans voted for her. And no demand, from no president, changes that. The race will be decided by the voters, not by a phone call, not by a demand, and not by a man who cannot accept losing.

This is the test of the country. Not whether Trump demands. He will always demand. The test is whether the country says no. Whether the institutions hold. Whether the votes stay with the people who cast them. They will. Because the system is stronger than one man's demands. It has to be. That is the whole point.

WEAR YOUR VOICE.