ANCHORAGE DAILY NEWS: Mary Peltola Will Fight to Lower Prices, Cut Taxes, Develop Oil & Gas as “Alaskans Everywhere are Struggling with Soaring Prices”

“It’s the No. 1 thing on people’s minds regardless of where we are” – Mary Peltola

“Alaskans everywhere are struggling with soaring prices for fuel, stove oil and other necessities like food, health insurance, utility bills, airfare, rents and mortgages” – Anchorage Daily News

New reporting from the Anchorage Daily News highlights how Mary Peltola’s laser-focus on lowering costs and putting Alaska first is driving support for her campaign as “Alaskans everywhere are struggling with soaring prices for fuel, stove oil and other necessities like food, health insurance, utility bills, airfare, rents and mortgages.”

The reporting notes that Dan Sullivan has “reliably” voted for “key policies that economic experts say are stoking inflation, including the global trade war and the Iran war.” This is as diesel and heating fuel prices hit record highs thanks to the Sullian-supported war in Iran with “a long winter ahead.”

On the other hand, Mary is running to bring down costs, with reporting noting that she supports eliminating income taxes for Alaskans making less than $92,000 a year, increasing the Child Tax Credit to put more money in Alaska families’ pockets, expanding Alaska oil and gas development, using tax credits to bring down housing and rental costs, increasing childcare options, establishing an Essential Freight Service, and eliminating taxes on Social Security.

You can read more about her plan to bring down costs for Alaskans here.

Former U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola has targeted economic concerns as a priority as she fights to unseat Alaska’s U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan in one of the nation’s most important races.

Alaskans everywhere are struggling with soaring prices for fuel, stove oil and other necessities like food, health insurance, utility bills, airfare, rents and mortgages.

Peltola, who has barnstormed the state to meet voters in more than 50 Alaska communities, says the economy is the most important topic on people’s minds, outweighing other hot-button issues such as wasteful salmon bycatch by trawlers.

“This is the only plot line that matters,” said Peltola, a Yup’ik Democrat from Western Alaska. “It’s the No. 1 thing on people’s minds regardless of where we are.”

Polls and analysts say Peltola is running neck-and-neck against Sullivan, a Republican running for a third term in a contest that has seen record-smashing spending by candidates and independent groups, beyond $100 million.

Sullivan has reliably supported the president and his key policies that economic experts say are stoking inflation, including the global trade war and the Iran war, which has disrupted global fuel shipments.

But economists say Alaskan voters are feeling especially squeezed by rising costs and the issue is increasingly worrisome with a long winter ahead, especially for the record-high prices for diesel and heating fuel that warms and powers more than 200 communities.

Peltola said people were already struggling this spring as the cold lingered, including an elder in the Western Alaska community of Emmonak who said his kids and grandkids were forced to choose between heat and food.

“And that was before we were feeling the terrible effects of the Strait of Hormuz being closed,” she said in an interview at a recent meet-and-greet with voters in Anchorage. “All of those concerns are still there, but even more so because our groceries are going up.”

During a trip to Selawik in Northwest Alaska, people told her about one household with a $1,500 electric bill, she said.

“I don’t know how people are going to afford electricity and heat when the bill is as high as that,” she said.

In an effort to quickly combat high energy costs, Peltola said she would do “everything in my power to say that this war in Iran should not progress.”

She’s proposed eliminating income taxes for all Americans who make less than $92,000 a year, by boosting taxes on the ultra wealthy, she said.

“The only way you can do that is by building coalitions and working across the aisle and working with everyone and anyone who also wants to roll up their sleeves and help,” she said.

She also wants to increase the Child Tax Credit to lower federal income taxes for families, use tax credits and tribal housing funding to help lower housing and rental costs, boost financial support to improve childcare options, and establish an Essential Freight Service that’s similar to the Essential Air Service to lower shipping and grocery costs in Alaska.

She has also proposed eliminating taxes on Social Security income and making the program “solvent” amid a projected funding shortfall.

“This is a contract that the U.S. government has with millions of Americans that have paid into this,” she told the audience at the recent event in Anchorage. “For tens of thousands of Alaskans, this is a critical piece of their retirement. We need to make sure whoever we’re sending to the U.S. Senate is a normal person, not a millionaire, somebody who is also very concerned about social security.”

Sullivan’s net worth is estimated at $8.2 million, in part due to holdings that include RPM International, the publicly traded multibillion-dollar corporation founded by his grandfather.

Peltola has reported assets between $62,000 and $230,000, according to required filings that allow financial information to be reported in ranges.

Still, the Senate race is tight because the affordability argument is “powerful stuff,” Hackney said.

Jim Lottsfeldt, a political consultant who often works for left-leaning and centrist candidates and groups, said that Sullivan and the GOP face an uphill challenge of their own making.

“They own the economy whether they like it or not,” he said. “Every time you go in a grocery store, when you’re worried about your bank balance and you don’t enough to cover food, that is not a good place.”

Peltola co-sponsored the FISHES Act, which became law in early 2025, to expedite disaster relief funds for fishing, her campaign has said.

She also cites her role in getting the Biden administration to develop ConocoPhillips’ giant Willow oil field in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska.

A past co-chair of the House’s centrist Blue Dog Coalition, Peltola has vowed to fight for more oil and gas development in Alaska, supports permitting reform to expedite projects, and wants to expand oil refining in the state in part with tax credits to help address Alaska’s high energy costs and grow the economy, her affordability platform says.

“Energy prices are out of control, and Alaska needs solutions from every angle,” her platform says. “In addition to fighting for oil and gas development by Alaskans for Alaskans, Mary will fight to restore federal tax credits for solar, wind, hydropower projects that were cut by D.C.’s reconciliation bill, and push for federal funding to diversify energy inputs for Alaska’s Railbelt.”

She has said she would fight corporate corruption and challenge anti-competitive mergers in an effort to bring prices down for Americans.

In 2023, she urged the Federal Trade Commission to halt the proposed Kroger-Albertsons merger that many Alaskans feared would raise grocery prices and reduce choice.

“Fighting for Alaska means working around the clock to make life here more affordable,” Peltola said in a prepared statement for this story. “That’s exactly what I’ll do in the Senate — take on DC corruption, lower costs for Alaska families, and put Alaska first.”