Kevin Abourezk
ICT
Mary Peltola will get a shot in November to become the first Native woman U.S. senator in America after advancing past her state’s primary election on Tuesday in a race that could determine the balance of power in the U.S. Senate.
But first the Democrat and former U.S. representative must defeat her state’s junior U.S. senator, Republican Dan Sullivan who also advanced Tuesday.
“We really need a champion for us in Washington, D.C., who gets us and will work hard for us,” Peltola told supporters Tuesday at her watch party.
Alaska’s unique voting system means the top four vote-getters among the state’s 16 candidates for U.S. Senate will move on to the November general election. The voting system requires all candidates for a given race to appear on the primary ballot, regardless of party affiliation, and voters are allowed to vote for candidates outside their own party affiliation in primaries.
With 324 of 403 precincts reporting late Tuesday Peltola held the lead with 48 percent of the vote, ahead of Sullivan with 43 percent.
If Peltola wins in November, the Yup’ik woman could become the first female Native U.S. senator, though if she wins she may share the title with Minnesota Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan, who won the Democratic nomination for an open U.S. Senate seat last week and leads in the polls against her Republican opponent Michele Tafoya. Technically, Flanagan, White Earth, could be the first since Minnesota is three hours ahead of Alaska.
To get there, Peltola must get past Sullivan, who is running neck and neck with her for the seat he’s held since 2015 as Alaska’s junior senator, according to most major general election polls.
Sen. Sullivan, a veteran and ally of President Donald Trump, campaigned on supporting the military, opening more land for oil and gas extraction, and voting for Trump’s signature tax and spending law. He told supporters Tuesday that his office is “getting big things done.”
Another candidate named Sullivan, Dan J. Sullivan, came in a distant third in Tuesday’s early vote tally. He won a legal fight to appear on the ballot despite claims by the senator and GOP allies that he was a sham candidate running at the behest of Democrats with the intent of causing confusion. Dan J. Sullivan, a retired teacher from the island community of Petersburg, denied that and said frustration with the incumbent prompted him to run. He appeared also set to advance to the general election, placing third in the early primary results with 2.5 percent of the vote.
ICT will differentiate between the incumbent senator and the other Sullivan in the race by adding the senator’s title before his name.
Peltola has outraised Sen. Sullivan, having raised about $18.5 million for her campaign, compared with about $11.7 million for Sen. Sullivan. As of July 29, Sen. Sullivan had about $7.3 million in his campaign account, compared with about $4.6 million for Peltola, according to the Associated Press.
At Peltola’s election night watch party at a downtown Anchorage brewery a few dozen supporters mingled late into the evening as results trickled in.
“There’s obviously a real race — something to take seriously here,” said Joe Nelson, Peltola’s ex-husband and a longtime Tlingit leader from Juneau. “This will be a good indicator of what’s to come.”
Nelson sported a pin with one of Peltola’s slogans — “Fish, Family, Freedom” — in a ballroom where her campaign was serving crab and cheese sandwiches and a smoked salmon platter.
Supporters said they were encouraged by the early results in a primary race that Alaska political analysts say typically skews more conservative than in the general election.
“Any Democrat that is in striking distance in the primary, that’s a real candidate,” said Joelle Hall, president of the Alaska AFL-CIO, the state’s largest organized labor group. “Campaigning is about knowing when to accelerate, and Mary has resisted the urge to accelerate too early.”
Eighteen Native candidates appeared on Alaska’s primary ballots on Tuesday.
In Alaska, Native people are a key demographic, making up 17 percent of the state’s 740,000 residents. The state is home to approximately 40 percent of Indian Country — 229 of the 575 federally recognized tribes across the country are in Alaska.
Sen. Sullivan was first elected in 2014 after defeating Democratic U.S. Sen. Mark Begich and then won his 2020 reelection.
Peltola was first elected in a 2022 special election to replace longtime Republican congressman Don Young, who died after almost 50 years in office. She defeated Republicans Sarah Palin and Nick Begich in Alaska’s first statewide ranked choice voting election, becoming the first Alaska Native to serve in Congress. She was elected to a full term later that year but lost her 2024 reelection bid to Nick Begich, who is the nephew of the former U.S. senator.
Tristan Douville, special projects manager for the Central Council of Tlingit & Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska, has worked to get rural Alaska voters, especially Native voters, to show up at the polls for the primary and general elections.
The 27-year-old Tlingit man and former Biden administration political appointee serving within the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Indian Energy said Peltola’s inclusion in the U.S. Senate race made this year’s elections the “most important election of my generation.”
As a former resident of Prince of Wales Island in southeast Alaska, Douville ate fish at least five nights a week because his family relied on fish to survive. He said Peltola understands the importance of fishing rights for Alaska Native people.
“She is the strongest advocate for our subsistence ways of life in Alaska,” he said. “I know that when I was growing up in a rural village, we would not have survived had we not had access to our subsistence foods and our salmon.”
He said Gen Z voters, or voters under about age 30, have low voter turnout but largely support Peltola. It’s something he’s attempted to change.
“Gen Z supports protecting our subsistence ways of life, but a lot of my contemporaries don’t make it to the polls,” he said. “So yeah, I’m passionate about this because I want people in my generation to get excited to go vote again.”
Aaron Leggett, president of the Native village of the Eklutna – the only federally recognized tribe in Anchorage, Alaska – said tribes and Native leaders in Alaska have struggled to decide whether to support Peltola or Sullivan with some fearing that should they decide to support Peltola that they might frustrate Sullivan, who some Native leaders believe also has fought for Native communities and is married to an Alaska Native woman, Julie Fate Sullivan who is Koyukon Athabascan.
“(Sullivan) knows that this is going to be a very competitive race and were Mary to prevail it would be quite a day for Alaska and certainly for Alaska Natives,” Leggett said. “I think a lot of Alaska natives support Peltola, but I think they’re also pragmatic enough to know that if she’s not successful, that we’re gonna want to maintain a relationship with Sen. Sullivan.”
But he told ICT that he was glad to see Peltola make it past the primary election.
“I’m really happy to see that Mary Peltola made it into the top four as I anticipated she would,” he said. “I’m looking forward to a highly competitive race, and I hope that a lot of Alaskan issues and issues that are incredibly important to Alaska Natives get brought up during the campaign season.”
Peltola shook up her campaign leadership days before the primary, letting her campaign manager go and elevating a deputy to that role. In a statement, the campaign described the changes as “staffing updates as we transition into the general election.”
Besides Peltola and Leslie, 16 other Native candidates were seeking office in Alaska on Tuesday. They include:
- Saima Chase, Iñupiat, a Democrat seeking the District 40 Alaska House of Representatives seat
- Maxine Dibert, Koyukon Athabascan, a Democrat seeking the District 31 Alaska House of Representatives seat
- Neal Foster, Iñupiat, a Democrat seeking the District 39 Alaska House of Representatives seat
- Tyler Ivanoff, Iñupiat and Yup’ik, a nonpartisan candidate seeking the District 39 Alaska House of Representatives seat
- Robyn Frier, Iñupiat, a Democrat seeking the District 40 Alaska House of Representatives seat
- Nellie “Unangiq” Jimmie, Yup’ik, a Democrat seeking the District 38 Alaska House of Representatives seat
- Reynold Okitkun, Village of Kotlik, a Democrat seeking the District 39 Alaska House of Representatives seat
- Dennis Robinson, Qawalangin Tribe of Unalaska, a Democrat seeking the District 37 Alaska House of Representatives seat
- Cade Woods, Curyung Tribal Council, an Independent seeking the District 37 Alaska House of Representatives seat
- Darren Deacon, Native Village of Kalskag, a Republican seeking the District S Alaska State Senate seat
- Bryce Edgmon, Yup’ik, an Independent seeking the District S Alaska State Senate seat
- Wayne Morgan, Aniak Traditional Council, an Independent seeking the District S Alaska State Senate seat
- Meda DeWitt, Tlingit, an Independent seeking to become Alaska’s governor
- Greta Schuerch, Iñupiaq, a Republican seeking to become Alaska’s lieutenant governor
- Christopher Steere, Iñupiaq, a nonpartisan candidate seeking to become Alaska’s lieutenant governor
- Bill Hill, Dena’ina Athabascan, a nonpartisan candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives
ICT will work to provide updates on the results.
Nat Herz of the Anchorage Press contributed to this report from Anchorage, Alaska, and this report contains some material from The Associated Press.
