Q&A: Meet the woman who made history in Alaska

Mary Peltola on Wednesday became the first Alaska Native in the state’s history and the first Democrat in decades to be elected to fill Alaska’s lone House seat.

Peltola, who is Yup’ik, won the special election to serve the remainder of the late Rep. Don Young’s (R) term in an upset. She beat out former Gov. Sarah Palin (R) and Nick Begich III (R), a co-chair of Young’s reelection campaign, whose grandfather once held the seat.. 

Peltola’s win came the first time Alaska used a new system of an open primary followed by ranked choice voting in the general election.

Peltola is also running against Palin and Begich for the full two-year term to represent Alaska in the House starting next year. That election will be decided in November.

The Hill spoke with Peltola by phone less than 24 hours after her historic win to talk about her race, her response to criticism over ranked choice voting and her call with President Biden. The interview has been edited for length and clarity:

The Hill: So my first question is, you just turned 49, and you had your special election win yesterday. How does it feel right now to be the first ever Native Alaskan and the first Democrat in decades to represent Alaska in the House?

Peltola: It’s just a real honor and a privilege and very humbling to have been chosen to fill out the remainder of Congressman Young’s term. Congressman Young has really established a legacy of working for all Alaskans, regardless of their party affiliation or what region of the state they’re from, and I intend to continue his legacy of working for all Alaskans.

What message do you think voters are sending by electing you to Congress?

You know, ranked choice voting, this is the first time we’ve been able to use ranked choice voting. I’m very optimistic about it. I think that getting away from partisan primaries will help attract more moderate candidates that really reflect better the moderate Alaskan voters. I think the majority of Alaskans are very moderate and middle-of-the-road. And I think that, for me, one of the takeaways is that the person, the candidate who is most negative in this race, got the fewest votes. And the candidate who really worked hard at staying on message and not being distracted with partisan pettiness got the most votes.

There have been some Republicans including, you know, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, who was also going head-to-head with you for this special election, who have criticized ranked choice voting … I’m curious what your response is to some of these criticisms we’re hearing regarding ranked choice voting?

Ranked choice voting is still new to a lot of people. And change is hard, and it doesn’t come easy. But I think that, in this regard, change is certainly good and worth the growing pains. I do think — I have a lot of faith in ranked choice voting. Eighty-five percent of the time, the person with the most votes is the person who ends up with the seat. You know, clearly there has been a lot of messaging in the last couple years about — kind of attacking the confidence that we have in our electoral process and our electoral system. And Alaska has a very, very solid and … great elections. We have a lot of faith in our elections. And I think it’s a disservice to, you know, shoot holes in the confidence that we have in our election.

Does your win on Tuesday change your outlook on how you think Democrats will fare in the House and Senate ahead of November?

I don’t like to make too many predictions. I’m a pretty superstitious person and feel like making declarative statements tends to jinx things. So I do not want to speculate on national trends. I won by a decent margin, but it certainly wasn’t a landslide. I’ll be taking a very careful look at where I need to focus more of my time in terms of outreach to Alaskans and connecting with voters. But I am also very — I’m going to be very focused on the November election and making sure that we stay on track for capturing that two-year seat and really building on the momentum that we’ve built in this special election.

I heard that President Biden had called you following your win. What did President Biden say to you?

Well, he offered me a lot of congratulations and good humor and just touching base and reaching out and and primarily offering congratulations.

Are there areas that you’re thinking of where you feel like you align well with the president and maybe others where you feel like you may differ, for example?

Sure, health care. I agree with his desire to help with student loan forgiveness. I think that’s a step in the right direction. I think helping families find affordable health care and just health care in general is the right direction. I think that the president’s stand on many issues are ones that I will be in alignment with.

I’m curious what some of your legislative priorities are once you get sworn in.

Well, I’ll only have four months. And as you know, as political insiders know, it often takes 10 years to make advances in public policy on any given issue. And I’ll only have four months. So my objective is going to be getting a good lay of the land and meeting my colleagues and starting to build positive working relationships with my colleagues and looking at where I can build coalitions and consensus to help solve some of our big pressing issues. We’ve got tremendous challenges right now in terms of inflation, and in terms of a lot of other things. So I’m going to be most focused on meeting my colleagues and developing positive relationships.

I understand that, you know, you focused a major component of your campaign on a pro-fish campaign. I’m curious if there’s any environmental priorities you have in Congress that you’d like to see or you’d like to work on.

So one of the things I’m very interested in is the reauthorization of the Magnuson-Stevens [Fishery Conservation and Management] Act, and that is, especially in regard to the North Pacific Fishery Management Council, the Bering Sea is not as productive as it should be. Just as an example, Chinook salmon, when I was growing up, for every Chinook that spawned, six would return. Now for every Chinook salmon that spawns, less than one return. And this really reflects the low ocean productivity that we’re seeing and the factory trawling that’s going on in the Bering Sea is not helping the situation. And I think that it’s time that the federal government really implement adaptive management and precautionary management while we’re trying to get a handle on what the factors are that are causing this steep decline in Chinook returns.