Mary Peltola rejected Kamala Harris support on Wednesday after Harris emailed Peltola supporters urging them to back her in the Alaska U.S. Senate race. Peltola’s campaign said she is not seeking endorsements from anyone from the Lower 48 and said she does not need Harris’s help.
A Peltola spokesperson said, “Mary isn’t seeking endorsements from anyone from the Lower 48 – her focus is and always will be Alaska.” The same spokesperson said Peltola is proud to have the endorsement of AFGE, the Alaska AFL-CIO, Alaska IBEW Local 1547, and more than 10,000 Alaskans who have signed up to volunteer with the campaign.
Harris Email To Supporters
Harris’s email never said she endorsed Peltola, but it encouraged recipients to back the challenger running against incumbent Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska. The message said, “If you understand how Alaska puts control of the Senate in play for Democrats and are ready to help Mary Peltola get the support she needs, use this link to split a donation between her campaign and my Fight for the People PAC today.”
The email created a public split between support from a former vice president and Peltola’s own message about where she wants that support to come from. Harris has not committed to running for the 2028 presidential election, and in April she said she was thinking about another run for president.
Peltola And Harris In 2024
The clash also follows Peltola’s stance in the 2024 election, when she did not endorse Harris. On July 23, 2024, Peltola said, “Looking at this presidential race, my position is whoever the president is, that is the person that I am interested in working with to help Alaska move forward.”
She added that “whether that president is Donald Trump, or if that president happens to be Kamala Harris … there will be a lot of common ground,” and said, “There will be a lot of things that we collectively agree on.” That earlier position now sits alongside her campaign’s sharper line that endorsements from outside the Lower 48 are not what it is looking for in the Senate race.
Dan Sullivan Response
Sullivan’s campaign seized on Harris’s email, with spokesperson Nate Adams calling it a union between Harris and Peltola. Adams said, “Kamala Harris supported the Biden administration’s disastrous anti-Alaska agenda, which is why Alaskans rejected her by double digits.”
He added, “Alaskans can see exactly whose team Mary Peltola and Kamala Harris are on, and it isn’t Alaska’s.” Harris’s email also asked supporters to split a donation between Peltola’s campaign and the Fight for the People PAC, but FEC records show the PAC has not donated any funds to Peltola in 2026.
That leaves Peltola with a simple choice in how to handle outside help: accept the attention, or keep drawing a line around local support. Her campaign chose the line, and the race now moves forward with that split on public view.
