Peltola was elected to a full term in the House earlier this year, becoming the first Alaska Native elected to Congress.
Representative According to the Associated Press, Mary Petola was elected to a full term in the House. Peltola defeated Republicans Sarah Palin and Nick Begich, as well as Libertarian Chris Bye, in a three-way race. On Wednesday, the results of the ranked-choice election were announced.
Following the death of veteran Republican Rep. Don Young, the Alaska Democrat first won the seat in an August special election. Peltola, a Yup’ik, is the first Alaska Native to serve in Congress, as well as the first woman and Democrat to retain Alaska’s House seat since 1972. She completed the remainder of Young’s tenure before running for a full term in the November election.
“What’s most important is that I’m an Alaskan sent to represent all Alaskans,” Peltola told reporters following the special election. “Being Alaska Native is part of my ethnicity, but I’m much more than that.”
Peltola campaigned as part of a coalition of Democrats, centrists, and Alaska Natives who supported her “pro-family, pro-fish” program. While Palin and Begich competed for the conservative vote, Peltola advocated for greater political civility and abortion rights.
Peltola, who was a member of a panel charged with rebuilding salmon in Alaska’s Kuskokwim River, stressed worries about ocean productivity and the need to help struggling fisheries.
Palin’s defeat is a big setback for the former Alaska governor and McCain’s running mate, who positioned her campaign as her great political comeback. Throughout her campaign, she depended on the endorsement of former President Donald Trump and her status as a political outcast, a strategy that looks to have backfired.
“We’ve been humiliated, ridiculed, wrongly accused, and forced to sit and quiet up.” “Everything you’ve heard about me is a lie,” she declared at a July rally. “I’m a lot worse than you’ve heard.”
Peltola stated her aims for the upcoming term in an October speech, as reported by AP, and stated that she is “working very hard on bringing our inflation rates down, our shipping prices down, getting costs down for working families and all Alaskan homes.”
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