Dan Sullivan

JUNEAU — A report published Wednesday in The New York Times detailed allegations of angry outbursts by Democratic former U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola directed at staff members during her time in Congress and the use of slurs, as well as turmoil within her current high-profile campaign for the U.S. Senate.

The Peltola campaign denied any pattern of abusive behavior and called the ex-staffers’ accounts “exaggerating and outright lying.”

Inside Alaska, political pundits aren’t sure how much the report will move the needle in the nationally watched race, which is one of a few that could determine control of the Senate.

After the story published, the Alaska Republican Party and national GOP groups backing her opponent, incumbent Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan, were quick to criticize Peltola over the allegations in the article, which was based on interviews with nine unnamed former staffers as well as text messages and photos.

Meanwhile, the Alaska Democratic Party issued a statement standing by Peltola, citing her history working in Alaska’s notoriously rough-around-the-edges world of commercial fishing and the deaths of her mother and husband during her time as Alaska’s lone U.S. House representative.

The New York Times reported on allegations that Peltola pushed a staffer and on multiple occasions used the word f-----, a slur to describe gay people — claims the campaign denied. The article also described angry, profane outbursts from Peltola against both staffers and others who frustrated her, as well as her alleged usage of a derogatory term for people with intellectual disabilities.

Other allegations in the Times article include an instance in which Peltola — exasperated with Planned Parenthood’s scrutiny of her deliberations over how to vote on a defense bill that included anti-abortion policies — reportedly wrote in a text message about a board member of the group, “I hope she dies of a botched abortion.”

The article reported that two of Peltola’s former staffers said a last-minute campaign staff shakeup shortly before the August primary was linked to an outburst from the candidate. Staffers also described to the Times Peltola’s unusual requests while she served in the U.S. House, including instructions to feed live crickets to her family’s pet chameleon, Meatball.

While the report ignited debate on social media and in Alaska’s political circles, analysts said the article appears to have had little impact on how voters are feeling about the race’s two front-runners in an electoral landscape marked by partisanship and other major concerns, like the rising cost of living.

Peltola led the primary with 49.5% of the vote, followed by incumbent Sullivan with 41.4%. Recent polling has shown a close race between the pair, with some surveys giving Peltola a narrow lead and others showing Sullivan ahead.

There are likely some voters who are sitting on the fence who could be swayed by the report, posited Ian Hartman, director of the University of Alaska Anchorage’s Institute of Social and Economic Research. But he thinks most voters won’t be moved to change their vote by the story.

“I don’t see this as fundamentally reshaping the race,” Hartman said.

Congressional term marked by personal loss

Peltola was elected to the U.S. House in a special election to replace Don Young, who died in 2022.

After first winning the seat in the August 2022 special election, she ran again in that year’s November general election to win a full first term in Congress. Her time in office also corresponded with major personal losses in her life: Her mother died less than a year after Peltola first took office, and her husband, Eugene “Buzzy” Peltola, died in a plane crash months later.

Harry Child, spokesperson for Peltola’s campaign, acknowledged in response to the Times article that in the months following her husband’s death, Peltola was struggling to deal with her grief while also serving in the House and running for reelection in 2024. But the campaign disputed the pattern spelled out in the Times report.

“Like any person who has gone through multiple personal tragedies in the span of a few months, Mary sometimes struggled to deal with her grief. But she treats her staff with respect and care, and she maintains close positive relationships with her staff spanning her nearly 30 years in public service. Exaggerating and outright lying about moments from the hardest period of her life, and falsely presenting them as a pattern of behavior, is wrong,” Child wrote in a statement.

The Alaska Democratic Party jumped to Peltola’s defense, calling the article a “hit piece” purposefully released just over a month before the election in an effort to sway the hotly contested race.

“Mary grew up working on a fishing boat and was made in the mold of great Alaskan leaders that came before her. She’s the only candidate in this race who will actually fight to lower costs and put Alaska first, and Alaskans will send her to the Senate this fall because she will deliver,” a spokesperson for the party said in an email.

Republican U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who has endorsed Sullivan, also defended Peltola, telling CNN that she believed parts of the article to be “inflammatory” and that the circumstances surrounding Peltola’s time in office amounted to “pressure that is hard for anybody to bear.”

Partisan nature of American politics

After the Times article was published, Sullivan and Republican organizations highlighted the former staffers’ allegations as a reason why voters should not back Peltola.

Talking to reporters in Washington, D.C., on Thursday, Sullivan described Peltola’s alleged behavior as a “character issue,” CNN reported.

“I think it’s very sad, very disturbing that so many Alaskans had to get put through that kind of severe abuse, which is very disturbing, but not surprising,” he is quoted as saying in the CNNarticle.

The Senate Leadership Fund, a Republican-backed PAC supporting GOP incumbents, called her comments “deeply offensive and disturbing” on Wednesday. The Alaska Republican Party also put out a social media statement condemning Peltola.

“Character matters. Mary Peltola has none. Leadership matters. Mary is not one,” the party posted on social media.

Despite the outcry from both national and in-state Republican organizations, Art Hackney — a political consultant who often works for GOP candidates and who created an independently operated pro-Sullivan super PAC — said he thinks the response from the general public has been relatively muted in the face of what he described as “damning” statements from Peltola.

“I think we just live in a world where people just want to support what they want to support, and they’re willing to overlook just about anything. But I got to believe that there are people who just look at it and say, ‘Holy smokes!’” Hackney said.

The New York Times followed up on Friday with an article reporting a slate of reactions, citing Alaskans who were “dismayed, but not moved,” by the allegations in the first article. Tyson Fick, a fisherman from Juneau who previously worked for Peltola during her time in the U.S. House, told the Alaska Beacon there was a cultural clash on her staff between Alaskans used to “salty” language and staff she hired from the East Coast.

Hartman, with the Institute of Social and Economic Research, said the reaction to the article reflects in some ways the nature of American politics, in which people can be quicker to condemn behavior from the opposing party than from their own, even if the conduct alleged in the article is eyebrow-raising.

“I think that Democrats have styled themselves as being a little bit more cautious around the use of language, and it is a little bit — well, it’s frankly a lot surprising to hear someone speak like this,” Hartman said.

More broadly, Hartman sees a shift in political decorum over the past several decades that makes voters more willing to accept unprofessional conduct and other combative behavior than they were in the past.

He doesn’t attribute it entirely to President Donald Trump, but Hartman said that the president has contributed to a political environment in which insults, profanity and personal attacks have become more commonplace than they were decades ago.

Jim Lottsfeldt, a political consultant who often works for left-leaning and centrist candidates and groups, said he initially was dismayed and concerned about the effects of the article on Peltola’s campaign until reading the comments under the author’s social media post about the article. He said many of them brushed off the severity of the allegations.

“I started to read the comments, and then I just started to giggle because the comments were so not what this writer intended to achieve that I said, ‘Oh, this isn’t going to affect the race whatsoever,’” Lottsfeldt said.

Alaska’s history of hot-tempered politicians

Alaskans are no stranger to politicians with fiery demeanors.

Hartman pointed to Alaska’s history of electing public officials known for their combative styles, including Peltola’s congressional predecessor Young and former U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens, “two widely revered figures in Alaska’s political history.”

Young used a slur to describe Latino migrant workers in a radio interview in 2013, and was videotaped grabbing and twisting a staffer’s arm the following year. In another incident, former House Speaker John Boehner said Young pinned him against a wall in the House and held a 10-inch knife to his throat, which Young said was “mostly true.”

Stevens was known for his temper and occasional outbursts on Capitol Hill. He would often wear a tie featuring the Incredible Hulk, a superhero known for his powerful bursts of rage, on the Senate floor during tough legislative battles.

“Both of them had their rough edges,” Hartman said. “I don’t want to suggest that excuses any behavior, but what I do think it suggests is that Alaskans have long had a tolerance for … language that is not proper in Sunday school.”

When asked about the comparison, Hackney argued that Stevens wielded “a different kind of anger” that he used to fight for causes for the state, rather than expressed during interpersonal conflict. “I don’t think those are even in the realm of comparison,” Hackney said.

Even as he rejected the idea of comparing the allegations against Peltola to that of Alaska’s hot-headed political past, Hackney said the effect of the report in the November general election will likely only impact a thin slice of the voter base.

“It’ll make a difference. The question is how much,” Hackney said.