Mary Peltola's 'No Show' Label Sparks Debate Over Personal Tragedy and Public Duty
Democratic Senate hopeful faces accusations of missing votes, but her campaign points to family loss as a primary reason for absences.
Democratic candidate Mary Peltola, running for Alaska's Senate seat against incumbent Republican Dan Sullivan, has been labeled "No Show Mary" by former President Donald Trump and criticized by Sullivan for a pattern of missing votes and meetings.
Records indicate Peltola missed a significant portion of her votes while serving in the Alaska House of Representatives between 1999 and 2009, not participating in over 18 percent of state House votes. She also missed more than 36 percent of meetings as a Bethel City Council member from 2011 to 2013. As a congresswoman representing Alaska between 2022 and 2024, data shows she missed over 17 percent of 1,370 roll-call votes.
Peltola's campaign has pushed back against these criticisms, characterizing them as political attacks that "shamefully twist" her personal circumstances. They explain her absences by citing significant family tragedies and maternity leave. In 2023, Peltola experienced the deaths of her mother, LizAnn Williams, in May, followed by her husband, Eugene Peltola Jr., in a plane crash less than four months later. During this period, she took time off to return to Alaska to support her family, leading to her missed congressional votes.
Friends who have known Peltola since high school described the period following these losses as "devastating" and a "dark time." One friend, Andrei Jacobs, a supporter who joined Peltola's first campaign in 1996, noted the disruption to her "family layer," which he considers a critical aspect of her personal philosophy represented in her campaign logo.
Following her husband's death, Peltola posted on social media that the "weight of that loss hasn't lifted, not for our family and not for the countless others who loved him." Her campaign asserts that these personal difficulties were the primary reason for her congressional absences.
The race for Alaska's Senate seat is considered a toss-up by The Cook Political Report, with some polls showing Peltola with a slight advantage, raising concerns for Republicans in a traditionally red state. The contest has drawn intense scrutiny, including an extraordinary bid by Trump to order the Justice Department to sue Alaska to block the certification of its Senate election results if Sullivan were to lose. Trump's administration filed a lawsuit arguing that voters could be confused by candidates with similar names, specifically a rival named Dan S. Sullivan Jr., intended to draw votes from the incumbent, Dan J. Sullivan.