Suzanne Downing: The ‘other’ Mary showed up in Kodiak fish debate, and it was not the nice Mary

By SUZANNE DOWNING

Sept. 13, 2026 – For years, Mary Peltola’s political handlers have sold Alaskans a carefully polished image: Mary smiling. Mary laughing. Mary holding a fish. Mary, as the cheerful, bipartisan neighbor who just wants everyone to get along.

That was not the Mary Peltola who appeared Saturday at Kodiak’s storied Fisheries Debate.

This was Sour Mary. Dour Mary. Eye-rolling and mouth-twisting Mary.

The US Senate panel consisted of Peltola, the Democrat, and Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan. The two other candidates advancing from the primary to the November ballot — Decoy Dan J. Sullivan and Gerald Heikes — did not attend. That left voters with the two candidates running serious statewide campaigns, while the decoys stayed home. After all, the fisheries debate is not for amateurs.

The contrast between Peltola and Sullivan was striking: Sullivan was energetic and upbeat as he discussed fisheries legislation, Alaska seafood, foreign competition and the work he has accomplished during his years in the Senate.

Peltola sat stony-faced, frequently fixing the audience with a blank expression. There were also her smirks, sneers, and eye rolls, and her answers repeatedly turned into digs at Sullivan.

This was not the charming Peltola who appeared before the Alaska Oil and Gas Association earlier this summer. It certainly was not the perpetually smiling Mary displayed in campaign advertising.

It was the other Mary, the one who emerges when the pressure is on. The one that her staff knows about. And the one that may have driven away her closest ally and advisor, Anton McParland. Former Peltola staffers have horror stories to tell about how “cruel” she was to people.

Peltola leaned heavily on her personal fishing biography.

“I’ve been fishing in Alaska since I was six years old,” she said. “I became a permit holder after turning 12. I am the only candidate on this stage who is an Alaska fisherman. Fish is in my blood, earned over generations on the water.”

She wears this like it’s a personal achievement, when it’s simply a way of life she inherited.

But Alaska is electing a United States senator, not choosing the skipper of a fishing boat.

Sullivan answered with the distinction: Being a fisherman is not the same as producing results for fishermen in Congress.

“First term into Congress, she never introduced one bill on fish, never got a bill passed and signed into law,” Sullivan said. “I have numerous bills dealing with fisheries and other actions that help our fisheries in Alaska.”

In fact, none of the bills she introduced ever became law.

That was the central weakness in Peltola’s performance. She repeatedly invoked her identity as a fisherman but had few concrete legislative accomplishments to place beside it. She never addressed the main point of the debate: She got nothing done in Congress.

Sullivan pointed to his work targeting illegally harvested Russian and Chinese seafood, including closing a loophole that allowed Russian fish processed in China to enter American markets and government food programs.

“Banning Russian and Chinese trawl-caught fish —  that took thousands of hours of work for me,” Sullivan said. “This is something my opponent was MIA on.”

Peltola offered nothing but dismissiveness in response.

She has spent much of the campaign calling for a ban on factory trawling. Yet when she reached Alaska’s premier fisheries debate, with the industry listening, she did not bring it up. It is much easier to campaign against “factory trawling” in a television advertisement than to explain in Kodiak precisely which vessels, fisheries, communities, and Alaska jobs would be affected.

Then came the icebreakers and the big lie.

Peltola said she was proud to bring icebreakers to Kodiak.

But the actual authorization and funding that will place two new Arctic Security Cutters in Kodiak came through the present Alaska delegation: Sullivan, Murkowski, and Rep. Nick Begich.

Sullivan has spent years pressing the case for rebuilding America’s depleted icebreaker fleet and positioning those vessels in Alaska, where the ice actually is. Peltola’s attempt to make the Kodiak announcement part of her own record was political barnacle-scraping.

She took another swipe at Sullivan over the new Office of Seafood at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, deriding it as the “Dan Sullivan office of farmed seafood.”

That was a curious reversal. During the Kodiak fisheries debate two years ago, when she faced Nick Begich, Peltola spoke favorably about giving seafood a stronger voice within USDA. Now that Sullivan is associated with accomplishing it, the idea has apparently become something sinister.

Peltola also claimed Congress has not passed a budget since the 1990s. That is not accurate. Congress has enacted numerous budgets and appropriations packages since then. What Congress has failed to do since fiscal year 1997 is complete all of its regular appropriations measures on time. She apparently confused the two issues.

There is plenty to criticize about Congress’ broken budget process without rewriting what has happened.

Peltola portrayed Washington as paralyzed and unproductive across multiple administrations. Yet her successor, Nick Begich, has moved bill after bill through the House, in less than two years. Peltola served more than two years without getting one of her sponsored bills enacted.

She can blame Congress, the system or Dan Sullivan, but eventually a candidate must answer for her own record.

Peltola’s campaign is built around “Fish, Family and Freedom,” with fish doing most of the political work. She reminds voters that fishing is in her blood and presents herself as the authentic voice of Alaska fishermen.

There is that unforgettable campaign photograph from 2023. Peltola, posed beside a river holding a rod and reel upside down as she play-acted at fishing.

Her branding is polished, her smiling in campaign ads is incessant. But in Kodiak, the smile disappeared. The pleasant, bipartisan Mary promoted in millions of dollars’ worth of advertising gave way to a pinched, combative, dour candidate who seemed irritated that Sullivan kept answering her childhood biography with his legislative record.

Alaskans saw two very different approaches Saturday. Sullivan came prepared to discuss what he had done, what he had accomplished. Peltola came prepared to tell everyone who she is based on her heritage and childhood, and then to take credit for things that she had nothing to do with.

Suzanne Downing is founder and editor of The Alaska Story and is a longtime Alaskan who has fished commercially and recreationally.