Democrat Senate Candidate In Tight Race Accused By Former Staffers Of Angry Outbursts And Offensive Language

#AlaskaSenate

NYT: Former aides describe angry and profane outbursts from Mary Peltola that were directed at aides and sometimes expressed about others who had displeased her.

In one instance, she shoved an aide, according to a former staff member who was present and two… https://t.co/QJq6ibzrAx pic.twitter.com/NlAVyrK02W

— Politics & Poll Tracker

(@PollTracker2024) September 24, 2026

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Four former staff members said they directly heard her use the word “faggot” over the years, in some cases about her own staff members, an allegation the campaign denied. She also used the word “retarded,” according to former aides and text messages viewed by The New York Times.

Her demands could be unusual, such as requiring aides to feed live crickets to her family’s pet chameleon, Meatball.

Ms. Peltola’s displays of anger, the extent of which has not been previously reported, have been spilling out into the high-stakes race. This account is based on interviews with nine former staff members, who requested anonymity out of fear of retaliation and to preserve their professional reputations, as well as dozens of contemporaneous text messages and photos.

The volatility also affected the operations of Ms. Peltola’s congressional office. During her brief tenure in the House, she amassed one of the highest staff turnover rates on Capitol Hill.

Last month, the tensions boiled over after a seemingly minor disagreement, when Ms. Peltola, locked in a competitive bid to oust Senator Dan Sullivan, a Republican, fired a handful of longtime staff members just days before the Alaska primary. The campaign downplayed the upheaval at the time, but two of Ms. Peltola’s former aides said it was fueled by one of the candidate’s blowups.

In response to questions from The Times, a spokesman for Ms. Peltola’s campaign denied any pattern of abusive behavior. But the campaign acknowledged that she had sometimes struggled to deal with the grief of losing her mother and her husband over a few months in 2023. Her husband, Eugene, was killed in a plane crash.

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Breaking video: Mary Peltola does not answer our questions about the NYT report that broke alleging she called staffers a homophobic slur, used the R word and physically pushed a former staffer. The NYT story broke just before she took the stage tonight at a Labor event in… pic.twitter.com/Ndsxfirw7j

— Matt Finn (@MattFinnFNC) September 24, 2026

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ALASKA POLL – Senate

RCV first round

Mary Peltola: 48.4%

Dan Sullivan (i): 43.8%

Gerald Heikes: 4.0%

Dan J Sullivan Jr: 3.7%
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Final Round

Mary Peltola: 51.9%

Dan Sullivan: 48.1%

Aug. Poll – Peltola +1.2@The_Real_ASR (A) | 9/11-12 | 1,352 LV pic.twitter.com/5nOxwI4WXO

— InteractivePolls (@IAPolls2022) September 22, 2026

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ALASKA POLL By Fabrizio (R)/Impact (D) (RCV final round)

SENATE

Mary Peltola: 53%

Dan Sullivan (inc): 47%
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GOVERNOR

Jonathan Kreiis-Tomkins: 55%

Bernadette Wilson: 45%

AARP | recalled: Trump +11 | 9/8-11 | LVhttps://t.co/hEXGEqXcHk https://t.co/1egnwCoUWj pic.twitter.com/edc5giUYnV

— InteractivePolls (@IAPolls2022) September 17, 2026

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The Times said former aides described an incident in which Peltola shoved a staffer, a charge the campaign denies. When running for reelection in 2024, Peltola became angered by a Planned Parenthood regional board member’s “scrutiny of her deliberations over how to vote on a defense bill that included anti-abortion policies.”

“I hope Planned Parenthood knows that if we don’t win it’s more their loss than ours. F*** THOSE B******,” Peltola wrote in a text message to her staff in January 2024 that was viewed by the Times.

In another text message, Peltola became irked after a commercial fishing executive posted a photo of them, which caused her trouble because she is opposed to large-scale trawling. In the texts, Peltola referred to the executive as a “r*tard” and said, “I nothing him,” a dismissive expression sometimes heard on the show Scrubs.

Peltola’s campaign acknowledged to the Times that using the word was inappropriate.

“The atmosphere in her office rattled staff members, who were sometimes driven to tears and often discussed quitting,” the paper said. “Some said the mental anguish caused them to lose weight or deal with the stress in therapy.”

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