Two Republicans with the same name are running for Senate in Alaska. The bigger threat? Democrat Mary Peltola
Observers call Peltola, who won the red state’s House seat twice and is running to unseat Dan Sullivan, ‘a unicorn’
Dan J Sullivan is a retired schoolteacher and US Forest Service employee living in the town of Petersburg in south-eastern Alaska, who is running as a Republican for the US Senate. Dan S Sullivan is a Republican US senator, who has represented Alaska since 2015
Both candidates will appear on the ballot, one name after the other, when Alaskans vote in primary elections this week – a complicated quirk of the contest that has drawn howls from Republicans
But the incumbent senator’s real threat, Alaska politics watchers say, is Mary Peltola, a Democrat who managed to twice win election to the state’s seat in the US House of Representatives, and is now vying tobeat him in November’s midterm elections in the US Senate. The Tuesday vote in the nonpartisan primary will see four candidates advance to the general election for the seat in November
Though no Democrat has been elected to the US Senate from Alaska since 2008, the party believes Peltola is the right candidate to flip the seat, and her victory would put Democrats well on their way to retaking control of Congress for the final two years of Donald Trump’s presidency
“The reason Mary Peltola has a chance is not because, necessarily, Democrats are surging in Alaska,” said Scott Kendall, an election law attorney who has worked for candidates of both parties, including the senator Sullivan. “It’s that Mary Peltola, you know, she’s very pro-oil and gas development. She’s good on issues that matter to Alaskans’ pocketbooks, and that makes her just a bit of a unicorn.”
The largest state in the union but physically separated from the lower 48, Alaska has unique politics. With an economy heavily reliant on oil and gas production, the state’s Democrats tend to advocate for expanded production, in contrast with their counterparts elsewhere, who are concerned about fossil fuels’ role in driving the climate crisis
While Alaska has only once voted for a Democrat in a presidential election – Lyndon B Johnson, in 1964 – power has oscillated between the two parties at the state level, and bipartisan coalitions today control both the state house and senate. Independents make up two-thirds of registered voters and Republicans about 23%, while fewer than 12% of Alaskans are Democrats
Sullivan won election in 2014 after beating first-term Democratic senator Mark Begich, and has been a reliable Republican vote in his two terms, hewing much closer to his party’s agenda than the state’s senior Republican senator, Lisa Murkowski, who has grown prominent nationwide for repeatedly bucking Trump
Peltola cracked the GOP’s dominance of the state’s federal delegation in 2022 when Don Young, the Republican who had represented the state’s at-large US House district since 1973, died suddenly. She triumphed in the special election to finish his term, becoming the first Alaska Native ever to serve in Congress, and won a full term later that year. In 2024, Republican Nick Begich III narrowly defeated her bid for re-election
Alaska voted for Trump by more than 13 percentage points that year, but Peltola is viewed as Democrats’ best bet for the Senate race in one of a handful of red states the party is targeting to win back a majority in the upper chamber
Seeking to prove that she can better advocate for the state’s specific interests and needs in Washington, Peltola has put her moderate brand of politics at the center of her campaign. Her slogan “fish, family, freedom” is a nod both to the cultural importance of fishing in Alaska – and especially to its native communities, which form a potent political bloc – and to the issue of bycatch, whereby trawlers pick up valuable catches like crab and salmon in their nets, harming sport and commercial fishers alike.
“Fish has always been, really, a passion issue in Alaska,” said Joelle Hall, president of the Alaska AFL-CIO, which has endorsed Peltola. Hall credited the former congresswoman with making the issue of bycatch and the health of the fishing industry in general more prominent in the state’s politics
During her time in the House of Representatives, Peltola advocated for Joe Biden to approve Willow, one of the biggest oil and gas developments in decades. The decision drew hackles from environmentalists for its potential to drive global heating, but Hall describes it as huge for unionized workers
“We are also in the middle of a little bit of an oil and gas boom in Alaska,” said Hall. “That’s because Mary Peltola brought us the Willow project with the Biden administration.”
Peltola may be further boosted by national trends breaking in Democrats’ favor. Trump’s approval ratings are low in the state as they are nationwide, while gas prices in Alaska have shot up since the start of the US-Israel war on Iran, and are now among the highest nationwide. Polls have recently found the two candidates neck-and-neck before the November election, and major election forecasters view Sullivan’s re-election bid as a tossup
A former marine who served as the state’s attorney general and natural reilitary affairs in a state with a large number of bases and veterans, as well as his own efforts to preserve the state’s fisheries
Steve Frank, a Republican former state senator, said that despite Peltola’s efforts to see Willow approved, he believed Sullivan would be a more reliable advocate for the state’s economically vital oil industry, especially with the presidential administration set to change in another two years
“The federal government views us kind of like a colony, and they forget that we’re American citizens trying to earn a living up here,” said Frank, referencing moves by the Biden administration to protect tracts of Alaska land and water from oil drilling. “And so they tend to want to lock us up, keep us from developing our re
The race has seen major spending, with the Republican-aligned Senate Leadership Fund announcing it will put $17m towards helping Sullivan, while the Democrats’ Senate Majority Pac invested $12m into backing Peltola. Federal Election Commission filings until the end of July show Peltola has outraised Sullivan, bringing in $18.5m to his $11.7m, with $4.6m on hand compared with the Republican’s $7.3m
Meanwhile, OpenSecrets, a non-profit that tracks campaign donations, reported that two Super Pacs (political action committees) have spent a combined nearly $2m in Alaska recently to back other candidates who could syphon votes from both Peltola and Sullivan
Also on the ballot in Tuesday’s election will be Nick Begich III, who is vying for a second term against independent Bill Hill, the main challenger for the House seat after Democrat Matt Schultz dropped out and endorsed him. Alaskans will also select candidates to replace governor Mike Dunleavy, the Republican incumbent who is barred by term limits from seeking re-election
Dan J Sullivan of Petersburg, Alaska, who did not respond to a request for comment, is listed just above the senator among the 16 names running for Senate, though Dan S Sullivan has “registered Republican” and “incumbent” next to his name
The GOP went to court to boot Dan J Sullivan from the race, arguing that he was a “sham” contender propped up by Democrats to confuse voters and undermine senator Sullivan, but were unsuccessful
Though it’s a marquee race of this year’s US Senate elections, when it comes to Alaska-specific issues, Kendall predicted there may wind up being less daylight than would be expected between Peltola and Sullivan on Alaska-specific issues
“I think she would probably frustrate a lot of Democrats, if I’m being honest. I think she would be, to national Democrats, what Lisa Murkowski is to national Republicans,” said Kendall
“There’ll be a moment where a Democratic president says something like: ‘Well, I want to turn this huge swath of Alaska into a wilderness preserve, no hunting, no fishing, no development,’” he suggested. “She’s going to balk at that.”
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