Peltola distances herself from Kamala Harris endorsement ahead of Alaska primary

Finya Swai Sat, August 15, 2026 at 4:46 PM UTC

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Former Rep. Mary Peltola (D-Alaska) is distancing herself from an endorsement from former Vice President Kamala Harris as she looks to win the Alaska Senate race.

Harris threw her support behind Peltola in a fundraising email on Wednesday from her Fight for the People PAC, urging supporters to donate to Peltola’s campaign as Democrats seek to flip the Senate seat held by Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska).

“If there’s anyone who can flip Alaska and secure the Senate majority for Democrats — it’s Mary,” Harris wrote.

Republicans quickly moved to link Peltola to Harris, who lost Alaska to President Trump by 13 percentage points in 2024.

Nick Puglia, a spokesman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said in a statement that the former congresswoman worked “hand in hand with Kamala Harris to put Alaska last, so it’s no surprise that Harris is backing Peltola.”

Peltola’s brief term in Congress overlapped with Harris’s time in office.

Sullivan’s campaign also piled on, telling the New York Times in a statement, “No matter how hard Mary Peltola tries to hide from the endorsement, Alaskans can see exactly whose team she and Kamala Harris are on.”

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Peltola’s campaign, however, insisted it did not seek the endorsement from Harris and had no knowledge of the fundraising email prior to it being sent, according to a New York Times report.

“Mary isn’t seeking endorsements from anyone from the Lower 48 — her focus is and always will be Alaska,” her campaign said, citing support she received from several labor groups in the state.

Alaska state Rep. Rebecca Himschoot (I) pushed back on Harris’s decision to wade into the race, calling the fundraising email “really dumb.”

“She’s riding Mary Peltola’s coattails,” Himschoot told the Times. “And she’s not even running for anything that anyone knows of yet, and didn’t do well here to begin with.”

Peltola represented Alaska’s at-large congressional district in the House from 2022 to 2025. She won a special House election in 2022 and secured a full term later that year before losing her reelection bid to Rep. Nick Begich (R-Alaska) in 2024.

Should she advance out of Alaska’s nonpartisan primary Tuesday, she will be one of the top four candidates to move on to the general election in November.

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