Free Republic

Rep. Mary Peltola announced the departure of three key members of her official Washington, D.C. staff, including Senior Policy Advisor Larry Persily, Interim Communications Director Josh Wilson, and her Interim Director of Scheduling and Operations Paula Conru. Although when she started her career in Congress much was made about how she hired Republicans (Persily is not among those), she is getting a staff of almost-all Democrats. Alex Ortiz of Ketchikan, her chief of staff who served as Congressman Don Young’s final chief of staff, may be the final remaining non-Democrat in her office. Persily is nonpartisan and a longtime Alaskan,...

Democrat Rep. Mary Peltola won reelection to a full term in the House after she defeated Sarah Palin in a special election to replace Rep. Don Young in August. Peltola was the FIRST DEMOCRAT to win the House seat in solid red Alaska in 50 Years! Ranked-choice voting and mail-in ballots were implemented by referendum in 2020. The results of the November 8 election were announced Wednesday night.

Democrat Mary Peltola has won the race for Alaska’s at-large congressional seat, NBC News projected Wednesday, defeating former governor and GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin. While the election was held earlier this month, the race was not called for weeks because of Alaska’s new ranked-choice voting system where voters rank the candidates in order of preference. After the first round of voting, Peltola led Palin by more than 20 percentage points, with Republican Nick Begich, a scion of one of Alaska’s most well-known political families, in third. But because Peltola failed to win more than 50 percent, the voting...

ANCHORAGE — Speaking to a large conference room of Alaska Natives on Friday, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R) had only words of praise for Rep. Mary Peltola (D), the first Alaska Native elected to Congress, who is also up for reelection. “Mary is a woman whose heart is as grounded in Alaska as anybody you’re going to find,” Murkowski told reporters after the event, wearing a gold-colored, paisley-patterned kuspuk, common Alaska Indigenous clothing Peltola gave her last year. Asked if she would rank Peltola first on her ballot next month in Alaska’s new ranked-choice voting system, Murkowski paused. After a full...

Twenty-one-year incumbent Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) has said she will vote for Democrat House candidate Rep. Mary Peltola (D-AK) over Republican challenger former Gov. Sarah Palin. “Yeah, I am,” Murkowski responded Friday when asked by the Anchorage Daily News if she would vote for the Democrat. Alaska uses the ranked choice voting system, which ultimately affords Democrat voters the opportunity to vote for Murkowski on the second and third ballots. Murkowski’s decision to vote for a Democrat is likely intended to attract more votes down-ballot to ultimately defeat Trump-endorsed Senate Republican candidate Kelly Tshibaka, who is leading in the polls...

A series of back-and-forth emails obtained by Must Read Alaska show that major D.C. lobbyists and operatives associated with the late Congressman Don Young are trying to get all former employees of Young to sign on and support Congresswoman Mary Peltola in November. The Swamp is trying to pull the Democrat over the finish line. And they’re using Peltola to get Sen. Lisa Murkowski reelected. The emails involve well-known Alaska-focused lobbyists and politicos such as C.J. Zane, Jack Ferguson, Steve Silver, and others, and the messages were copied to dozens of former staffers for Young and a few business leaders...

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — A little-known candidate for the U.S. Senate race in Alaska suspended his campaign Monday, hoping not to divide the GOP vote during the general election by throwing his support to a fellow Republican backed by former President Donald Trump. Buzz Kelley, who finished fourth in the primary race, said his motivation for suspending the campaign came after Republicans Sarah Palin and Nick Begich lost to Democrat Mary Peltola in the special general election for the state’s U.S. House seat left vacant with the death in March of U.S. Rep. Don Young. “After the Peltola victory, the...

Well, the left has got one. On Twitter and beyond, you've never heard such crowing.According to Politico:Democrat Mary Peltola has defeated Republican Sarah Palin in the special election for Alaska's vacant House seat, a big upset over the former governor in the state's first election under ranked-choice voting.Peltola, a former state legislator who will become Alaska's first indigenous member of Congress, defeated a special election field that included Palin and another Republican, Nick Begich III. The Democrat finished first in the initial tally and then won enough second-choice votes from Begich's supporters to see off Palin, who had former President...

Democrat Mary Peltola was the apparent winner of Alaska’s special U.S. House race and is set to become the first Alaska Native in Congress, after votes were tabulated Wednesday in the state’s first ranked choice election. Peltola led Republican former Gov. Sarah Palin after ballots were tallied and votes for third-place GOP candidate Nick Begich III were redistributed to his supporters’ second choices. Peltola, a Yup’ik former state lawmaker who calls Bethel home, is now slated to be the first woman to hold Alaska’s lone U.S. House seat.

Today, Alaska is set to release the results of its special election to fill a vacant House seat, with Democrat Mary Peltola locked in a close race with former governor Sarah Palin (R). The election was Aug. 16, the state’s first ranked-choice contest, and after a 15-day waiting period required by state law, the results will be announced. If she wins, Peltola would be the first Alaska native elected to Congress. If Palin wins, it would revive the political career of a candidate who lost the vice presidency in 2008. The winner would serve the last four months of the...

Moderate Republican candidate Tara Sweeney announced over the weekend that she will run in the general election for U.S. House after a separate effort to get her on the special election ballot came up short with the Alaska Supreme Court. On Saturday, the Alaska Supreme Court upheld a lower court’s ruling that state law forbids Sweeney—who finished fifth in the special election primary—from taking the spot in the special election that was vacated after third-place finisher independent candidate Al Gross suddenly withdrew from the race. The decision keeps the race a three-way contest between Democratic candidate Mary Peltola and Republican...