Dan Sullivan

The leading candidates in Alaska’s U.S. Senate race faced off over their fisheries record in Kodiak, addressing wasteful bycatch by trawlers, high fuel costs that are hurting fishermen, and salmon shortages that have reduced openers.

Two-term Republican incumbent Sen. Dan Sullivan and Democratic challenger Mary Peltola, a former U.S. House lawmaker, found opportunities to lob attacks at each other at the Kodiak Chamber of Commerce debate Saturday as they sought to win political points with the state’s fishing industry.

The Senate race has generated national attention and huge fundraising, with Democrats hoping to flip the seat as part of the party’s push to regain control of the Senate. Peltola handily won the August primary, though experts have said a bigger voter turnout in the Nov. 3 general election could meaningfully change results.

The challengers, seated side-by-side on the debate stage, addressed issues that keep looming larger as the general election approaches, including inflation tied in part to President Donald Trump’s global trade war and the war in Iran.

They also focused on the problem of bycatch — when trawlers accidentally haul in tons of salmon and other seafood in their pursuit of pollock — a topic that exploded to the forefront of Alaska’s political races after getting limited attention in previous years.

In one sign of the close attention the race has received, Sullivan gave his opponents a moment that went viral when he glanced at an answer from Peltola before responding himself, during a round when candidates held up paddles to respond yes or no.

“Do the North Pacific Fishery Management Council and NOAA Fisheries adequately consider impacts on subsistence users, salmon migration, habitat and Indigenous ways of life?” a moderator asked.

Both candidates answered no.

[Leading candidates in Alaska U.S. House race endorse bycatch limits in fisheries debate ]

Fisheries disaster funding

Sullivan, an ally of Trump who has won the president’s endorsement, called struggling salmon runs “probably the most important issue facing Alaska.”

He said he’s taken steps to fight for Alaska fish and fishermen and will keep doing so. During the debate, Sullivan said he’s passed bipartisan legislation combating ocean debris, and advocated for the new Office of Seafood at the U.S. Department of Agriculture that’s designed to support fishermen, which Sullivan said he is working to codify with legislation.

Sullivan said that “for over 100 years, farmers had policy programs that help so many farmers from USDA, and our fishermen never got access, loans, crop insurance, all these things, and they’ve been outside the door of the USDA. They’re now inside the door.”

He said he legislatively created a task force to help address declines in Alaska salmon, though Peltola’s campaign pointed out in a “fact check” message sent out during the debate that she also supported the task force in the House.

Sullivan tried to paint Peltola as a do-nothing lawmaker during her time in office, a period that lasted a little more than two years after she won a special election to replace the late Republican Rep. Don Young and won the general election in 2022.

“It’s not easy to pass a bill, Congressman Peltola,” Sullivan said. “It’s hard. It takes hard work.”

He said he’s worked with the Biden and Trump administrations to ban the importation of fish caught by Russian and Chinese trawlers, and called Peltola “MIA” on the issue, though Peltola also fought for the ban.

Peltola — who is Yup’ik from Southwest Alaska, and said that she has fished since she was 6 and that fish are “in my blood” — has repeatedly made improving Alaska’s fisheries and reducing bycatch a central part of her campaigns.

She pushed back against Sullivan, saying she’d worked with him to provide disaster relief funding for Alaska fishermen. She said she pursued “longer-term solutions for making sure that fishermen and fishing families get those disaster funds in a more timely way.” Her campaign pointed out during the debate that she had co-sponsored the FISHES act that became law in early 2025, to expedite disaster relief funds for fishing.

[Trawling and bycatch dominate political messaging in Alaska’s U.S. Senate race]

Reducing bycatch

Echoing the flood of social media posts, broadcasts and mailers from recent months attacking both candidates, Sullivan and Peltola during the debate accused each other of not doing enough to limit bycatch.

During the debate, Peltola vowed to ban “Lower 48 factory trawlers” and “fight to restore abundance” for future generations of Alaska fishermen.

“Alaskans know the difference between a senator who fights for fish and one who fishes for donations,” Peltola said, referring to the roughly $300,000 in donations Sullivan has taken from trawling executives and PACs over the years, far more than the roughly $10,000 Peltola took in from the industry.

Sullivan said a bill that he’s introduced to reduce bycatch will soon be up for a vote in the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, where Sullivan has a seat. He said that if he’s elected, he has a shot at serving as chair of the committee, a powerful position once held by the late Alaska Republican Sen. Ted Stevens.

He also touted his record to push for more research on the causes behind declining salmon runs, which he said included climate change, ocean acidification, salmon from Russian hatcheries competing for food and changes to freshwater habitat.

“We have research gaps on salmon,” Sullivan said, holding up a copy of NOAA’s Alaska Salmon Research Task Force Report. “I am addressing these with NOAA, I am addressing much stronger, robust research as it relates to salmon and, of course, this legislation produced the Bycatch Reduction Act, which we’re voting on next week in the commerce committee,” he said.

Critics of Sullivan have said he introduced the bycatch reduction bill only recently in an effort to win votes, well after Peltola had introduced similar legislation during her time in Congress, though that did not pass.

“We don’t need a senator fueled by corporate greed of Lower 48 out-of-state factory trawlers and only offers half-hearted solutions when an election year rolls around,” Peltola said.

Peltola called for creating a federal version of the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute to help get more wild-caught Alaska fish on U.S. menus to replace farmed fish, something she said should have been done long ago.

She said she supports an overhaul of the 1976 Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, in part to rein in bycatch and to put at least one Alaska Native seat on the North Pacific Fishery Management Council, which manages fisheries in Alaska’s federal waters.

“I believe that the federal government should help invest in commercial fishing boats, trawlers, to make sure that they do have excluders, that there is real-time monitoring so that we are not devastating our environment,” she said, referring to “excluder” gear that can limit bycatch.

Sullivan said that if he’s chair of the committee, he’ll have the chance to reauthorize the act and make improvements.

[Sullivan, Peltola debate energy issues in closely watched U.S. Senate race]

Rising diesel fuel prices

Peltola also called out Sullivan for voting against efforts to limit Trump’s war powers in Iran, saying the resulting bottleneck in crude oil shipments in the Strait of Hormuz has directly boosted fuel costs, hurting Alaska fishermen and communities.

Every day, diesel fuel “is getting more and more expensive for our fishermen, more and more expensive to make ice, more and more expensive for our processors to process these fish,” she said.

“Most of our powerhouses are generated by diesel,” she said. “We need a break here. We need some help. We need somebody in D.C. fighting to lower our costs, not to jack up our costs.”

Sullivan argued that if Peltola wins, she’d empower national Democrats that have sought to limit resource development in Alaska, hurting the state’s economy. He acknowledged “people are struggling” with rising costs.

“We do have high costs with regard to diesel and other things,” he said.

In response to criticism from Peltola about a lack of action from Republicans to address affordability concerns, Sullivan said his efforts have established a White House task force on Alaska energy development and nearly doubled funding for LIHEAP, or the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program, a step that added an additional $10 million. He said he’s also fought to get waivers to allow more diesel fuel to be produced in Alaska.

“But here’s the thing: our challenges in Alaska have to be resolved by producing Alaska energy for Alaskans,” he said. “That’s the best way going forward. My opponent would ally herself with the anti-Alaska energy groups in Congress, they always do: shut down Alaska energy, and that would be really horrible for all Alaskans, including our fishermen.”