Mary Peltola

Mary Peltola is the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate. A Bethel-area fisheries and community-development professional, she served in the Alaska House of Representatives (1999-2009), on the Bethel City Council, and as Alaska's at-large U.S. Representative (2022-2025). Her campaign website says she is running to put Alaska first, with a focus on lower costs, fisheries and what she calls fixing a rigged system in Washington.[1][2]

Mary Peltola was born in Alaska and graduated from Bethel Regional High School. According to her campaign website, she grew up in Kwethluk and Bethel, fishing salmon on the Kuskokwim River with her father.[1][2][3] Her early career included work as a commercial fisher, as a lobbyist with Sattler Strategies, and as manager of community development and sustainability with Donlin Gold, and she later became executive director of the Kuskokwim River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission.[1]

Peltola served in the Alaska House of Representatives for District 39 (1999-2003) and District 38 (2003-2009), and on the Bethel City Council from 2011 to 2013.[1] She has also served on the Orutsararmiut Native Council Tribal Court and the boards of the Nature Conservancy, the Alaska Humanities Forum, the Alaska Children's Trust and the Russian Orthodox Sacred Sites in Alaska.[1]

In 2022 Peltola won the special election to fill the at-large U.S. House seat left vacant by Don Young, prevailing in the second round of ranked-choice counting, and she won the full term in the 2022 general election.[1] She served on the House Natural Resources and Transportation and Infrastructure committees in 2023-2024, lost her 2024 re-election bid to Nicholas Begich in the third round of ranked-choice counting, and left office in January 2025.[1] On her campaign website she says she and her husband Buzzy raised seven children in the Kuskokwim region.[2]

Researched from the cited sources on 2026-10-21.