Alaska Democrat Mary Peltola is injured in car crash while with family as her midterms campaign is thrown into turmoil
Alaska Democrat Mary Peltola and her family were injured in a car crash overnight, prompting her to postpone several midterms campaign stops.
The former congresswoman and her loved ones were traveling to the Alaska Federation of Natives’ annual banquet on Saturday night when another driver struck their car.
‘Mary and her family sustained minor injuries but are in good spirits,’ campaign manager Cheryl Bruce said in the statement.
‘Unfortunately, per the advice of medical professionals, Mary’s upcoming events in Fairbanks and Bethel will be rescheduled for later in the week as she takes time to recover.’
Peltola, 53, who is running to challenge incumbent Republican Dan Sullivan for Alaska’s Senate seat.
With just a little more than one week before the midterm elections, the lawmaker is said to be ‘disappointed’ that she has to delay the start of her tour.
Peltola is ‘eager to get back on the campaign trail to speak directly with Alaskans about her plan to take on the rigged system and lower costs for working families,’ Bruce added.
Her campaign says her stops in Fairbanks and Bethel, originally scheduled for today and Monday, will be rescheduled, while the rest of her tour will continue as planned.
Alaska Democrat Mary Peltola and her family were injured in a car crash overnight, prompting her to postpone several midterms campaign stops
Peltola is running to challenge incumbent Republican Dan Sullivan for Alaska’s Senate seat
The race for Alaska’s Senate seat is incredibly tight, with the Cook Political Report still ranking it as a toss-up.
Other polls have seen Peltola take a slight lead, sparking fears among Republicans that the once ruby-red state might turn blue in November.
The race has become so tense that President Donald Trump personally ordered the Justice Department to sue Alaska in an extraordinary bid to block certification of its Senate election results if Sullivan loses.
‘I’m the one that said do it,’ Trump told reporters Friday as he arrived in Florida for a campaign rally, confirming his role in the lawsuit filed by his administration late Thursday.
The lawsuit seeks to prevent Alaska from certifying the results of its November 3 Senate race under specific circumstances, arguing that voters could be confused by the presence of two candidates with nearly identical names.
Trump has accused Democrats of putting forward a rival named Dan S Sullivan Jr in an attempt to sway votes away from the sitting senator, Dan J Sullivan.
In an attempt to boost votes for Sullivan in one of the most heated midterm battles across the nation, the president repeatedly referred to Peltola as ‘No Show Mary’ and called her ‘a whack job.’
Sullivan himself also strongly leaned into portraying his opponent as neglectful of the duties of public service, claiming she missed ’20 percent’ of her votes in office.
The Republican aggressively attacked Peltola for this record, urging voters not to ‘give her a promotion’ and further highlighted that the Democrat failed to sponsor a single bill into law during her time in Congress.
Supporters of Republican US Sen Dan Sullivan and Democrat Mary Peltola gather outside the Anchorage, Alaska venue where the candidates participated in a debate earlier this month
Records show that Peltola missed almost one of every five votes while working in the Alaska House of Representatives and also as a member of Congress in DC.
Peltola did not participate in more than 18 percent of state House votes between 1999 and 2009, Fox News reported. She also missed more than 36 percent of meetings as a Bethel City Council member between 2011 and 2013, city records reveal.
As a congresswoman in DC between 2022 and 2024, the Alaska Native missed more than 17 percent of 1,370 roll-call votes, GovTrack data shows.
Her spokesperson previously told the Daily Mail that she had to take time off to deal with personal tragedies, and while she was on maternity leave.
But Peltola’s team has also accused Republicans, including Trump and Sullivan, of ‘shamefully twisting her family tragedy to score political points.
In 2023, Peltola lost two of her closest family members over the span of a few months – around the same time, the Democrat missed most of the congressional votes she was eligible for.
Her mother, LizAnn Williams, passed away in May that year.
Less than four months later, Peltola’s husband, Eugene ‘Buzzy’ Peltola Jr, 57, was killed in a tragic plane crash in remote Western Alaska.
The Democratic hopeful tragically lost her husband in a plane crash in September 2023, which her campaign explained as a main reason for her absence
The small Piper PA-18 Super Cub took off from a remote hunting camp on September 12, 2023 and went down shortly after on a hill in low-lying bushes and shrubs
The small Piper PA-18 Super Cub took off from a remote hunting camp on September 12, 2023 and went down shortly after on a hill in low-lying bushes and shrubs.
Peltola Jr was found conscious, but the nearest hospital was around 400 miles away and he died at the scene. He was the only person on board the aircraft.
Federal investigators last year revealed that the crash was caused by the aircraft being overloaded with moose meat and the unapproved installation of antlers on the right wing.
The avid moose hunter was a former Alaska regional director for the Bureau of Indian Affairs and worked for decades for the US Fish and Wildlife Service.
