Former Democratic congresswoman Mary Peltola announced Monday that she will run for Senate in Alaska, a Republican-leaning state that is key to the Democrats’ long-shot strategy of retaking control of the chamber in November.
Peltola is challenging Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan, who is seeking a third term in a state that President Donald Trump carried in 2024 by 13 points.
Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-New York) recruited Pelota, the first Alaska Native elected to Congress, believing she is the Democrats’ best shot at making a tough race competitive.
Peltola won a special election in 2022 to succeed Republican Rep. Don Young — who held Alaska’s lone House seat for nearly five decades — after his death, defeating Republicans Sarah Palin and Nick Begich. She was elected to a full term the same year before narrowly losing reelection in 2024, even as she fared far better in the state than Vice President Kamala Harris.
In a video announcing her Senate bid, Peltola revived the “pro-fish” slogan she used during her House campaigns and derided Washington politicians as “more focused on their stock portfolios than our bank accounts.” She voiced support for term limits while pledging to work to bring down grocery prices, lower energy costs and build more affordable housing.
“My agenda for Alaska will always be fish, family and freedom,” she says in the video. “But our future also depends on fixing the rigged system in D.C. that’s shutting down Alaska while politicians feather their own nest.”
Peltola is one of a handful of Senate candidates whom Schumer successfully convinced to run in crucial races, along with former governor Roy Cooper in North Carolina, Gov. Janet Mills in Maine and former senator Sherrod Brown in Ohio.
The party’s top pickup opportunities this year are North Carolina, where Trump won narrowly in 2024, and Maine, which Harris carried. But Democrats would be still be two seats short of a Senate majority if they win both states and hold onto all the seats they now hold.
Accordingly, Senate Democrats are working to compete in some states that Trump won by double digits, including Iowa, Texas, Ohio and Alaska. Democratic candidates were already running in the first three of those states, leaving Alaska as the biggest remaining piece of the party’s recruitment puzzle.
Alaska has not elected a Democratic senator since 2008, when Mark Begich narrowly defeated Republican Sen. Ted Stevens days after Stevens was convicted by a jury on corruption charges. The conviction was later thrown out after evidence emerged of potential prosecutorial misconduct.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-South Dakota) has said Republicans will run this cycle on the tax-and-spending legislation they passed in July. Sullivan told The Anchorage Daily News that no state will benefit from the bill more than Alaska.
Pelota was a co-chair of the moderate Blue Dog Coalition in the House. Her short time in Washington was marked by tragedy; her husband, Eugene “Buzzy” Peltola Jr., died in a plane crash in 2023.
In her video, Peltola praised Young and Stevens while suggesting the state’s current all-Republican delegation doesn’t measure up.
“Our delegation used to stand up to their party and put Alaska first,” Peltola said. “Ted Stevens and Don Young ignored Lower 48 partisanship to fight for things like public media and disaster relief because Alaska depends on them.”
The video does not directly mention Sullivan, who voted in July for legislation that cut $1.1 billion for public media. Alaska’s other senator, Lisa Murkowski, was one of two Senate Republicans who voted against the bill. Peltola and Murkowski had a warm relationship while they served together, even endorsing each other across party lines in 2022.
Sullivan has, in fact, broken with his party at times. He was one of four Republican senators who last month voted with Democrats to advance a bill that would have extended expiring Affordable Care Act health instance subsidies. The bill did not win enough votes to overcome a filibuster.
Sullivan also pushed the Trump administration behind the scenes to reverse some of its spending cuts recommended by the Elon Musk-led U.S. DOGE Service that affected Alaska.
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