Free Republic

Democrat Mary Peltola extended her lead over Republican U.S. Sen. Dan S. Sullivan in Alaska’s Senate race after the state Division of Elections tallied an additional 5,000 ballots on Thursday, bringing the total number of ballots counted to over 256,000. In the governor’s race, Democrat Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins had over 50% of first-choice votes after the latest ballot count, ahead of three Republican candidates. Kreiss-Tomkins said Wednesday that he expects that after all ballots are counted, he will have a comfortable majority of votes on his way to becoming the state’s first Democratic governor since 2002. Thousands of absentee ballots remain...

Even in Alaska, cold as it gets, if you leave a fish out long enough, it starts to get rank. The same is true for leftists. Give them enough time and enough space, and they will eventually funk up the place, and it will be no secret where the stink is coming from. .... The picture is not pretty. ... Where there’s smoke, there’s fire ... this scandal is growing. ... the scandal starts to strike at the core of the national leftist election infrastructure. The Elias Law Group is not just a law firm that serves leftist clients. In...

CBS’s Face the Nation host Margaret Brennan reportedly challenged CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss when Weiss asked reporters to investigate the scandal of Alaska’s ballot controversy. Fox News reported that several CBS staffers downplayed a New York Times report detailing how Democrats placed a decoy “Dan Sullivan” on the ballot to confuse voters and give Democrat candidate Mary Peltola an advantage in the Senate race. The New York Times reported that Peltola has ordered a staffer in Summer 2025 to find “as many people named Dan Sullivan in Alaska as you can.” ... The Justice Department has reportedly started investigating...

WASHINGTON — Alaska Senate hopeful Mary Peltola refrained from issuing an unequivocal denial of involvement in the effort to recruit another Dan Sullivan into the race — even as her campaign, which fired a lot of its original staff — distanced itself. Instead, Peltola lashed out at the press for coverage of her team’s alleged involvement in recruiting Dan J. Sullivan, also known as “Decoy Dan,” into the Alaska Senate race to confuse incumbent Sen. Dan Sullivan’s (R) voters. “This is just another distraction. It’s another diversion. Every day it’s some new, you know, look over here moment. Not Dan...

Alaska’s Republican governor announced early Thursday he was ordering an investigation into whether members of Democrat Mary Peltola’s Senate campaign should face criminal charges following the revelation that they recruited a candidate with the same name as GOP Sen. Dan Sullivan in a bid to siphon votes away from the incumbent. After the plot was revealed in a Wednesday New York Times report, Gov. Mike Dunleavy described it as “an organized effort to manipulate Alaska’s elections by recruiting candidates—including one with the same name as an incumbent U.S. Senator—to deliberately confuse voters and misdirect their votes.” “I am therefore directing...

President Trump on Wednesday called for Alaska Democratic Senate candidate Mary Peltola to drop out of the race and be criminally prosecuted after it was revealed that her allies were behind an effort to bring a candidate into the race that had the same name as her GOP opponent. “Mary Peltola should resign from the race. I think she should be prosecuted criminally for what she did,” Trump told reporters at Joint Base Andrews ahead of his trip to Ohio to campaign for Republicans there. He said any of her allies who worked to recruit Daniel J. Sullivan into the...

Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan of Alaska did not hold back during Thursday night’s high-stakes “Debate for the State” in Anchorage when he spotted his Democrat opponent, former Rep. Mary Peltola, appearing to read from scripted notes or answers. Sullivan appeared suspicious after observing Peltola consulting her notes and suggested that her responses looked suspiciously prepared. “We weren’t supposed to get these questions beforehand, were we?” Sullivan asked the moderators from Alaska Public Media and Alaska’s News Source. The moderator replied firmly: “Neither one of you got questions beforehand. Absolutely not.” Sullivan didn’t let it go. “Okay, I’m just watching my...

The state has prospered under Trump, and the vulnerable Sen. Dan Sullivan deserves credit.Link to ChatGPT Video Transcript SummaryWasilla, Alaska‘Build the line! Build the line! Build the line!” The chant roars through the sports center as Sen. Dan Sullivan revs up the crowd. It’s unleashed again when President Trump occupies the stage for his Tuesday midterm rally.The crowd is cheering a proposed 800-mile liquefied-natural-gas pipeline that would mean jobs, energy and a cash bonanza for the state. It’s a project politicians have failed to deliver for decades, but it’s tantalizingly close to approval. That is, if Alaskans don’t vote on...

Alaska’s first two ranked-choice elections were embarrassments, marked by complexity, confusion and delay. But, oh, for the good old days of mere humiliation. This year operatives finally cracked the many devious ways the system can be outright gamed. Alaska is now the poster child for dirty-pool politics. Alaskans won’t know until the end of August which “final four” candidates for each office will be on their ranked-choice November ballot after this week’s jungle primary. Residents will need that time to recover from the trauma of a monthslong campaign in which they were not valued as “we the people,” but duped...

Democrats have received some unlikely good news that challenger Mary Peltola maintains a lead against incumbent Senator Dan Sullivan of Alaska, a Republican, after six months of polling. The most recent data revealed by Alaska Survey Research (ASR) found that Peltola has 52.4 percent support from respondents when undecided voters are removed from the equation, maintaining her majority lead from the October and January polls; this is a nearly five-point advantage over Sullivan, who has 47.6 percent support. Why It Matters Historically, the ruling party suffer significant losses if they also control the White House during the sitting president’s first...

Lefty “Squad” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is using her powerful fundraising muscle to back a moderate, pro-gun, drill-baby-drill Democrat. “I’m reaching out to ask if you can split a $5 donation between Mary Peltola’s campaign for US Senate and our movement for progress?” the Democratic Socialist from Queens blasted out Tuesday in an email appeal. “Mary is running on a platform of systemic change — she’ll fight in the Senate to lower grocery costs and build new housing Alaskans can afford.” What the socialist rep didn’t mention to her progressive supporters is that Peltola lists her campaign priorities as “fish, family,...

JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — Republican Nick Begich has won Alaska’s U.S. House race, defeating Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola to claim the seat once held by his grandfather. Begich was among the opponents Peltola defeated during her special and regular election wins in 2022, following the death of Republican Rep. Don Young. Young had held the seat for 49 years. Peltola, who is Yup’ik, was the first Alaska Native in Congress. Republicans, seeking to maintain control of the House, eagerly sought to win back the seat. Wednesday marked the deadline for elections officials to receive ballots mailed from overseas for the...

Republican Nick Begich has ousted incumbent Democrat Rep. Mary Peltola to win Alaska’s lone House seat, Decision Desk HQ projects. That marks 220 seats for Republicans, surpassing the 218 needed to control the chamber. A little over two years after Peltola flipped the red state’s at-large congressional district into Democratic control, Republicans coalesced behind Begich to help boost him to another flip. Peltola finished first in this summer’s top-four, nonpartisan primary, followed by Begich and Lt. Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom (R). But Dahlstrom, backed by former President Trump, then bowed out of the race as the party sought to avoid fissures...

November’s ranked-choice election [for Congress] is a toss-up.

Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola’s husband, Eugene, was killed in a plane crash in Alaska early Wednesday, her office announced. The 50-year-old lawmaker, in Washington for the return of Congress from its August recess, planned to head home to the Last Frontier to be with her family. “He was one of those people that was obnoxiously good at everything. He had a delightful sense of humor that lightened the darkest moments,” her office said in a statement. “He was definitely the cook in the family. And family was most important to him. He was completely devoted to his parents, kids, siblings,...

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,...

The Alaska GOP formally censured Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell over the weekend for the Kentucky lawmaker’s interference in the Arctic Senate race between two Republicans. On Monday, the state Republican central committee announced the results of an overwhelming vote to admonish the national party leader over attack ads against Kelly Tshibaka, the candidate endorsed by the Alaska GOP who is challenging incumbent Sen. Lisa Murkowski. The final vote came to 49-8 in favor of a resolution censuring McConnell and the minority leader’s Senate Leadership Fund (SLF) which has pumped more than $5 million into the race to defend a...

Embattled Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) acknowledged over the weekend that casting a vote for Democrat House candidate Rep. Mary Peltola (D-AK) may not be the best political decision in her race against Republican challenger Kelly Tshibaka. Murkowski, who was given her Senate seat by her father 21 years ago, announced Friday she would vote for Democrat Peltola over Republican challenger Sarah Palin to win support from Democrats. Alaska’s ranked choice voting system allows cross-party voting, which ultimately affords Democrat voters the opportunity to vote for Murkowski on the second and third ballots.

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...