Who is Mary Peltola, the Democrat congresswoman who defeated Sarah Palin in Alaska?
The first Native Alaskan to serve in Congress beat the former governor in the midterms at the beginning of November.
Mary Peltola has reaffirmed her place as Alaska’s sole representative to the House of Representatives by overcoming Republican veteran Sarah Palin for the second time in three months.
Peltola, 49, is of Yup’ik descent on her mother’s side. She entered politics in 1999 started a ten-year stint as a Democratic legislator in the Alaska House of Representatives. She has a reputation for working across the aisle, almost an inevitability for a Democrat lawmaker in the state due to it normally being a Republican centre. She and Palin became friends when serving together at the Statehouse.
Peltola ran on a “pro-fish, pro-family, pro-freedom” platform. After taking office, she hired from Rep. Don Young’s former chief of staff, a Republican, to run her office.
“I want to work with everyone and anyone who is a reasonable person to find solutions to Alaska’s challenges,” she told the Guardian in August.
She ran an upbeat campaign speaking about progressive issues like support for abortion rights by enshrining them in law and putting in place some gun control measures such as universal background checks. When it comes to developing the state’s vast resources, Peltola sees balancing it with preserving the environment and ensuring access to local communities.
Peltola won the election with 54.94% of the vote in the third round of ballot-counting, after two other candidates, Nick Begich III and Libertarian Chris Bye, were eliminated earlier in the process.
What were the other results in the Alaskan elections?
Senator Lisa Murkowski, the incumbent moderate Republican Congresswoman, has also won re-election. Murkowski was facing a challenge from Trump-backed Kelly Tshibaka. Murkowski is somewhat of an old-school GOP politician in that she rejects a lot of the beliefs of the Trumpian-wing of the party. She voted to confirm Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson in April, one of only three Republicans to do so, as well as voted to impeach the former president.