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By Alex Backus and Giulia Carbonaro
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Former Alaska Representative Mary Peltola's U.S. Senate campaign is pushing back against allegations of abusive behavior detailed in a new report from The New York Times, saying the accounts exaggerate incidents from a period when Peltola was dealing with significant personal loss.
Peltola, a Democrat who represented Alaska in the U.S. House from 2022 to 2025, is running for Senate against Republican Senator Dan Sullivan after advancing from the state's August primary. The race is being closely watched nationally as Democrats seek to gain control of the Senate, and Cook Political Report currently rates the Alaska contest as a "toss-up."
On Thursday, Peltola spokesperson Harry Child told Newsweek that she had dealt with two significant deaths in her family three years ago.
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“Mary suddenly and tragically lost both her mother and her husband in the span of a few months in 2023," Child said. "At the time of their passing, Mary was parenting kids through their own grief, serving full time in the U.S. House of Representatives thousands of miles from home, and running a competitive re-election campaign—all while shouldering the enormous burden of grief.
"Like any person who has gone through multiple personal tragedies in the span of a few months, Mary sometimes struggled to deal with her grief. But she treats her staff with respect and care, and she maintains close positive relationships with her staff spanning her nearly 30 years in public service.
"Exaggerating and outright lying about moments from the hardest period of her life, and falsely presenting them as a pattern of behavior, is wrong.”
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Allegations of Abuse, Slurs
According to the Times, former staff members alleged Peltola's campaign and congressional office was darkened by angry and profane outbursts, staff turnover and inappropriate language.
The report included accusations by former aides that Peltola used the word "faggot"—a derogatory slur historically directed at gay men and LGBTQ+ people—at times toward her own staffers, a claim her campaign denied. The former aides and text messages reviewed by the Times also alleged she used the word "retarded," a term widely considered an offensive slur against people with intellectual disabilities.
Peltola's team denied that her behavior reflected a pattern of abuse.
Her campaign had already acknowledged to the Times that Peltola at times struggled during the grieving process after her mother and husband, Eugene Peltola Jr., died within months of each other in 2023. Her husband was killed in a plane crash in September 2023.
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The campaign also said Peltola treated her staff "with respect and care." Several former staffers interviewed by the Times described positive experiences working with the Senate candidate, including one former aide who called her "one of the finest human beings" for whom he had worked.
The Times reported that other former staffers made several allegations about Peltola's conduct, including claims that she used slurs, berated staff members and, in one 2024 incident, shoved an aide. The campaign disputed the characterization of that incident, saying Peltola accidentally bumped the employee while unfocused on the first anniversary of her late husband's death.
The report also detailed a team shake-up in August, when disagreements over campaign signs led to changes among senior staff and consultants.
The report was 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.
When asked by reporters about the Times article at a labor event in Anchorage on Wednesday night, Peltola did not answer, according to Fox News' Matt Finn.
With 40 days until the midterms, Grant Davis Reeher, a Syracuse University political science professor, told Newsweek that the report could have implications for Peltola’s campaign.
“I’m tempted to say that the race was formerly a toss-up,” he said.
Though national forces drive midterms in general, Reeher emphasized that local issues matter in a place like Alaska, pointing to previous elections.
“How you treat other people and your staff matters in such a remote place. Community matters in small population states,” he added.
What Polls Show
Peltola is leading Republican Senator Dan Sullivan in Alaska's closely watched race, according to a new AARP survey, adding to recent polls showing a competitive contest in a state President Donald Trump carried three times.
The poll, released September 17, found Peltola ahead of Sullivan 46 percent to 41 percent in the initial round of ranked-choice voting.
After simulating Alaska's voting process, her lead grew to 53 percent vs. 47 percent in the second round. The survey was conducted September 8-11 among 800 likely voters by the bipartisan polling team and had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.
A spokesperson for Peltola's campaign welcomed the poll, previously telling Newsweek that Peltola is focused on lowering costs and putting "Alaska first."
A recent Alaska Survey Research poll found Peltola leading Sullivan by roughly 1 point in the final ranked-choice round, while a Data for Progress survey also put her ahead 53 percent to 47 percent. A June New York Times/Siena College poll showed Sullivan with a narrow 2-point lead.
Analysts have cautioned against reading too much into the results. Joseph Warren, political science professor at the University of Alaska Anchorage, previously told Newsweek that Alaska is among the country's hardest states to poll because of its vast geography and diverse voter base.
Polling expert Nate Silver also weighed in on the Times report, pushing back on its overall portrayal of Peltola.
“I think most reasonably well-adjusted people would read this and feel pretty sympathetic toward Peltola rather than her annoying staffers,” Silver wrote on X.
“Like imagine how much of a loser you must be to think this is an issue of national importance that you must report to the New York Times,” he wrote, referring to the report's account of staffers feeding live crickets to Peltola's pet chameleon, Meatball.
Kalshi's prediction market on Wednesday showed a change in its market price for a Peltola win. Her odds on the platform fell to 72 percent from 77 percent earlier in the day, according to a post from Kalshi Politics on X.
Newsweek’s reporters and editors used Martyn, our AI assistant, to produce this story. Learn more about Martyn here.
Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Edward T. Cummins and Dan Gooding.
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