Peltola keeps things personal at first Juneau event of US Senate campaign
- Mark Sabbatini
- 2 hours ago
- 4 min read
Democrat challenging incumbent Dan Sullivan avoids issues during brief speech before chatting with individuals at meet-and-greet crowd
By Mark Sabbatini
Juneau Independent
Mary Marks remembers an easygoing meet-and-greet for Mary Peltola at a park in Juneau four years ago when she was one of 48 candidates seeking to fill a vacant U.S. House seat for a few months. Now that she’s perceived nationally as the person who may decide control of the U.S. Senate during the final two years of the Trump administration, things are a little different.
"She's trying to make contact with new faces, so you’ve got to get in and you got to move fast, like going down a highway," Marks said after exchanging words with Peltola at a meet-and-greet Friday evening at The Crystal Saloon. "You‘ve got to merge off, and you’ve got to get in and then get off the highway."
Marks was among more than a hundred people who filled the saloon for nearly two hours for Peltola’s first public event in Juneau since the Democratic former congresswoman announced Jan. 12 she is challenging two-term Republican incumbent Dan Sullivan. As with her announcement via an online video and first campaign events in Fairbanks and Anchorage, it was tightly managed by her campaign.
Conversations between her and attendees were generally cheerful and brief as loud music played from speakers and a security officer hovered nearby. Members of the media were given identifying stickers upon entering and told she wouldn’t be taking questions from them.
Marks said she asked about fishing concerns — one of Peltola’s campaign-slogan issues — involving bottomfishing by trawlers.
"She says that she can't do this alone, that she's got to get others like Sen. (Lisa) Murkowski on board," Marks said, adding she also asked Peltola about the longstanding "landless Natives" dispute involving five Southeast communities left out of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act.
Marks has been active in Alaska Native issues by formerly serving as president of Alaska Native Sisterhood Camp 12 in Hoonah, and in elected politics as a former Anchorage School Board member and Juneau Assembly candidate. She said if Sullivan makes a reelection campaign stop in Juneau, she’s likely to ask him the same kinds of questions as well.
Peltola entered the saloon about 30 minutes after the scheduled 5 p.m. start of the event and spoke to the crowd from the stage for about five minutes before spending the next 70 minutes greeting people and taking photos with them. She discussed no specific issues, instead talking about getting people to sign up for her campaign and turn out to vote, and repeated a previous campaign appearance remark about avoiding "inside baseball."
"We all read the newspaper, we all watch the screens, and the platforms and the news channels," she said. "We all have the same anxiety, and I think we're all feeling like this is a moral moment and we have to step up."
Peltola, a former state legislator from Bethel, vaulted from relative obscurity into the national spotlight by prevailing over 47 other candidates to win a special U.S. House race in August 2022 following the death of longtime Congressman Don Young. She became the first Alaska Native in Congress and was elected to a full two-year term that November, then was defeated in the 2024 election by Republican Nick Begich III.
There was considerable speculation she would run either for Alaska’s open seat for governor — since Republican Mike Dunleavy is required to depart after serving two consecutive terms — or Sullivan’s seat. The Cook Political Report moved its rating of the race from "Solid Republican" to "Lean Republican" when Peltola entered the race, but notes "Sullivan still starts with the advantage in a state President Donald Trump won by 14 points."
Peltola’s campaign website mirrors the "Fish, Family, Freedom" slogan of her past campaigns, and invokes an "Alaska first" theme that declares, "No one from the Lower 48 is coming to save us." That’s in sharp contrast to Sullivan, who is wholeheartedly praising President Donald Trump as riding to Alaska’s rescue with executive orders and other actions intended to maximize natural resource industries such as oil and mining.
The emphasis by Peltola on voter enthusiasm and turnout at Friday’s event resonated with Brenda Knapp, the Democratic National Party’s committeewoman for Alaska, who said in an interview that’s going to be the key to avoiding a repeat of the close loss to Begich.
"Getting the rural vote out," Knapp said. "It slipped from the first time she ran."
Peltola was also an incumbent with a voting record (including an above-average absentee rate) in 2024, adding to the challenges compared to being an outside newcomer in 2022. But former state Rep. Joe Hayes, a Democrat who served two years with Peltola in the Alaska Legislature in the early 2000s, said during Friday’s event she should get a similar benefit running against Sullivan this year since voters will have been through nearly two years of Trump’s second term.
"I think she gets additional points because so many moderates and progressives are riled up about what's happening in the country, and the fact that Sen. Sullivan is not providing the checks and balances he should at the U.S. Senate," Hayes said.
That is a motivating factor for Lauren Verrelli and Steven Gabelein, the latter of whom said he’s an oil spill response employee who worked with Peltola during a response to an incident while she was in the U.S. House and "she got stuff done."
"I think she's a really good person to bring people together for both sides," he said.
Knapp said Peltola is expected to return to Juneau during the Alaska Democratic Party’s Winter State Central Committee Meeting scheduled Feb. 13-15.
• Contact Mark Sabbatini at editor@juneauindependent.com or (907) 957-2306.
