Former U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola announced Tuesday that she will challenge Alaska’s GOP Sen. Dan Sullivan, setting up a key battle in the wider struggle for control of the U.S. Senate.
Democrats need to flip four seats and face stiff odds, but Peltola’s candidacy is the latest recruiting win by Senate Minority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer. He has coached ex-Gov. Roy Cooper to run for the seat of retiring North Carolina Sen. Tom Tillis, and Maine Gov. Janet Mills to challenge Republican Sen. Susan Collins.
Candidate recruiting has become easier as President Trump’s behavior has become more erratic and dictatorial, and as prices soar on Trump’s watch. The latest polling data, courtesy of Real Clear Politics poll tracker, shows Trump’s job-approval ratings in the drink, with an overall average of only 43.7 giving thumbs up to our 47th president.
Washington and Alaska senators have historically cooperated, witness collaboration of two Senate whales, Republican Ted Stevens and Democrat Warren Magnuson, on fisheries legislation. Peltola evoked Stevens’ name, even as she is running as a Democrat.
In a wider sense, Peltola’s challenge to Sullivan will test the national themes of both parties. Peltola is pledging to revive the tradition of bipartisan cooperation in what has been a bitterly divided U.S. Senate. She has, from the get-go, thrown the issue of affordability into the fray, accusing Sullivan of self-enrichment while Alaskans suffer. In announcing, she stated: “It’s not just that politicians in D.C. don’t care that we are paying $17 for a gallon of milk in rural Alaska. They don’t even believe us. They’re more focused on their stock portfolios than our bank accounts.”
At that point, however, Peltola in her announcement video pivoted to sound like Trumpist terminology, saying: “It’s about time Alaska teaches the rest of the country what Alaskans and, really, what America First looks like.”
Sullivan is a native of Ohio, educated at Harvard and Georgetown, and a down-the-line Trump supporter. He has been somewhat overshadowed by seatmate Sen. Lisa Murkowski, one Republican with the guts to take on Trump as well as the racism and sexism in her party. Murkowski has survived Tea Party and Trump challenges with strong Alaska Native and Democratic support. Recently, she has vocally dissented from Trump’s desire to buy or conquer Greenland.
An ex-Marine, Sullivan has specialized in defense issues. Perhaps accordingly, the National Republican Senatorial Committee found an immediate issue to throw at Peltola: Transgender teenagers are a threat to national security and the Republic. Peltola is “pushing radical transgender policies,” the NRSC said in a statement, standing for “open borders” and “men in women’s clothes.”
“Fish, family, and freedom” are likely to be Peltola campaign themes, lifted from her brief stint in the House of Representatives. A member of the Yus’ik Nation, she is the first Alaska Native to serve in Congress and hails from a village on the remote Kuskokuim River.
Crusty GOP Rep. Don Young, renowned for outbursts at environmentalists at House hearings, represented Alaska in Congress for 49 years, and died in 2021 on a Seattle-bound Alaska Airlines flight. A bitter Republican fight — typically, involving Sarah Palin — allowed Peltola to find a path to claim the seat and hold it in 2022. She lost to Republican Nick Begich, GOP scion of a Democratic family, in 2024 but far outran the Harris-Walz ticket.
Already there is intrigue in the race. Murkowski crossed party lines to endorse Peltola’s earlier runs for Congress. The two women served together in the Alaska Legislature and are friends. Murkowski held off, but on Monday endorsed Sullivan. She was returning a favor. He endorsed her last reelection, in which Trump flew to Alaska to campaign for Murkowski’s Republican opponent. But the endorsement was tepid, limited largely to Sullivan’s vote in keeping Republican control of the Senate.
Alaska is a reliably red state, and Lyndon Johnson in 1964 was the last Democratic presidential candidate to carry the 49th state. There is an independent and libertarian streak to its electorate. The state has a lively political culture. Both houses of the Alaska Legislature are run by a coalition of Democratic and independent-minded Republicans.
Peltola has a chance based on a number of factors. She is a champion of and expert on the state’s fishing industry. She can count on strong support in the Alaskan bush and the Native Alaskan vote. Alaskans will soon feel consequences of Trump’s “big beautiful bill” in their medical expenses.
As well, the 49th state has adopted ranked choice voting, which provided Peltola a path to Congress. Incumbent Sullivan faces no credible Republican opposition in Alaska’s open primary and has $4.7 million in the bank.
Peltola projects a genuineness, which was memorably displayed in contrast to an unctuous Rep. Pramila Jayapal at a Seattle fundraiser. She is an intriguing candidate, pro-development on such topics as Conoco’s Willow oil development on the North Slope west of Prudhoe Bay. The Biden Administration approved Willow, and environmental groups are in court seeking to stop it.
The stakes couldn’t be higher. Democrats need to run the table to take the Senate, to check the extremism and vengeance of Trumpism and block ridiculous, unqualified Cabinet nominees.
They must defeat Collins in Maine, capture the North Carolina seat, scene of recent near misses. And they have to hold seats of retiring Democrats in New Hampshire and Michigan, where Republicans have fielded a credible candidate. All of this leaves Texas and Alaska. The path to power runs through the melting permafrost of the 49th State.
This article also appears in the Cascadia Advocate.
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