JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — Alannah Hurley is still confused when she remembers Democrat Mary Peltola’s election to Alaska’s only U.S. House seat in the 2022 Congress — monumental for Hurley and her daughters.
“We finally have someone in Congress who looks like us, speaks like us, was raised like us, and who has lived experience and understands the beauty and challenges of being indigenous to this state and nation.” Hurley said.
Peltola, 51, is in a tough re-election fight against Republican Nick Begich in a high-stakes race that could determine whether Republicans or Democrats control the House. The campaign follows a year of intense personal tragedy for the lawmaker, who lost her mother and husband Eugene Peltola within four months of each other in 2023.
Peltola described the weeks surrounding her husband’s death in a diminutive plane crash as the most hard of her life. She returned to Washington about a month later, arriving in the midst of a period of infighting among Republicans over the House leadership. She said at the time that it was also a hard time for the country and that she was “ready to get to work.”
While Peltola hasn’t spoken much publicly about how she’s coping with her grief in the glare of publicity, people who know her well say they’ve been impressed by her resilience.
“When I think about how Mary has somehow kept her head through everything she’s been through over the last few years, I’m extremely proud of her,” said Alaska’s senior U.S. senator, Republican Lisa Murkowski, who told Peltola first met about 25 years ago when they were in the state parliament and met as mothers with boys.
“She wasn’t allowed to grieve the way most people are allowed to grieve. She had to be tough. She had to be there for her work.”
Murkowski, a moderate who has at times bucked against her own party, including supporting former President Donald Trump, endorsed Peltola two years ago and has endorsed her again. She pointed to the hyper-partisan state of politics today, with each party trying to deny the other victory.
“That’s not going to stop me from saying, ‘This is a good woman, a strong Alaskan who is focused on her state and has done good work for us,'” Murkowski said.
Alaska’s other Republican senator, Dan Sullivan, has endorsed Begich, a businessman from a family of prominent Democrats including his slow grandfather Nick, who once held the House seat, and Uncle Mark, a former U.S. senator.
Begich, who ran against Peltola in 2022 races that also included former Republican Gov. Sarah Palin, said he did not believe Peltola had done enough to push back against the Biden administration’s actions restricting resource development restricted in the state.
He is also trying a different approach than in 2022, when elections were conducted for the first time under a voter-approved system of open primaries and ranked-choice general elections. Trump, who has opposed ranked-choice voting, previously blamed Begich for costing Republicans the seat by staying in the race this year.
This time, Begich sought to solidify conservative support after the primary, in which he was the highest-ranking Republican after Peltola. Two other Republicans who were scheduled to advance to the general election withdrew, allowing two candidates who received a combined 1% of the vote, including John Wayne Howe, chairman of the Alaskan Independence Party, and Eric Hafner, a Democrat with no apparent ties to it Alaska is serving time in a New York prison to appear on the November 5 ballot.
The Congressional Leadership Fund, a super PAC aligned with Republican House leaders, ran an ad targeting Trump supporters saying that a vote for Peltola would be tantamount to canceling their Trump vote.
Peltola wants to prove that her special and regular election victories in 2022 following the death of longtime Republican Rep. Don Young were not a “coincidence,” as Trump suggested during a recent telerally for Begich. While she acknowledged her groundbreaking status and the importance given to many of her supporters, she also emphasized that her job is to represent all Alaskans and emphasized her willingness to work across party lines. Most registered voters in Alaska are not affiliated with any party.
“When I first ran for office, people projected onto me that I would only be interested in working on Native issues or only interested in working on issues affecting rural Alaska,” Peltola said in an October speech to the Alaska Federation of Native Conference, a enormous annual meeting. “And it’s a great honor for me to be able to convey a message to people: Indigenous people care about the health of an entire community, the health of the entire environment and the health of our entire society.
“We know that we are not a single group. We know that everything is connected. Everyone is connected.”
During this year’s campaign, Peltola angered some Democrats by refusing to support Vice President Kamala Harris for president, although she also said she would not vote for Trump. She has emphasized her role as part of Alaska’s congressional delegation pushing the Biden administration to approve the massive Willow oil project on Alaska’s North Slope. The project, supported by many Alaska Native communities and groups in the region, also enjoys broad support from politicians and unions in the state. Willow’s endorsement is being challenged in court by environmental groups who say it conflicts with President Joe Biden’s pledges to address climate issues.
Both the Peltola and Begich campaigns have tried to recruit supporters in a race that has drawn significant interest from outside groups. Results may not be known until November 20, when the rankings are announced. Peltola, who was endorsed by the Alaska Federation of Natives, predicted the seat would be won by “dozens of votes.”
“Hey, if we can survive for 12,000 years in Alaska, we know how to find the polling place and how to mail in a ballot. We know how to do this,” she told the group.
Officials have said they are working to ensure everyone can vote in the Nov. 5 election after incidents in recent elections where some polling places in rural Native communities opened slow or didn’t open at all .
Hurley, an independent from a fishing community in southwest Alaska, said she thought Peltola did a good job addressing issues rather than focusing on partisan politics. She said Peltola went “above and beyond what was expected” after the losses he suffered.
Hurley called the criticism Peltola received for leaving Washington in July to return home to fish “shameful.” Peltola’s office’s announcement that she would spend a week “putting out fish with her family to stock the freezers for the winter” also came as pressure mounted on Biden not to seek re-election.
Hurley said that for Indigenous people, livelihoods are not just about fishing, but also about connecting with the land and one’s culture.
“I can’t respect her more for making sure she has time – while also taking care of her office – and making sure she has time to nurture or maintain that connection,” she said.
