Peltola’s Senate launch stumbles out of gate as Kamala Harris commingles her funds and donors are sent to New Hampshire Democrat’s fundraising page

By SUZANNE DOWNING

Mary Peltola’s bid for US Senate was barely out of the gate Monday when her campaign committed a striking rookie error that undercut her central message about “Alaska values” and independence from outside political machines.

Within hours of announcing her run against Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan, Peltola sent out a fundraising appeal to Alaska voters urging them to become “founding donors” to her campaign. But the donation link in the message did not lead to a Peltola campaign page. Instead, it directed contributors to a joint fundraising page for Peltola and Chris Pappas, a Democratic congressman from New Hampshire.

The email and text message, which appeared to be generated through the national Democratic fundraising platform ActBlue, asked Alaskans to contribute to both campaigns simultaneously, even though Pappas is running for office 4,000 miles away and has no connection to Alaska.

The mistake immediately raised questions about how Peltola’s campaign is being run and who is actually in charge of her operation. Rather than being built in Alaska, the launch showed clear signs of being managed by an outside Democratic consulting firm using pre-packaged fundraising templates tied to national donor lists.

ActBlue is the Democratic Party’s primary online fundraising platform. It allows consultants to bundle candidates together, collect donor data, and route money through national networks. While it is widely used by Democrats across the country, it also ties campaigns directly to Washington-based fundraising operations and outside consultants.

In addition, her fundraising letter sent to emails across Alaska had an endorsement from none other than Kamala Harris.

For a candidate positioning herself as an independent voice for Alaska, the optics were jarring. On the same day Peltola told voters she was running to put Alaska first, her campaign was already sending Alaska donors into the Lower-48 political money pipeline and featured a name that is synonymous with being anti-Alaska: Kamala Harris.

The error reinforced what many in Alaska politics already suspected: that Peltola’s Senate bid was being rolled out for national Democratic donors as much as for Alaskans. Her 4 am Alaska-time announcement earlier in the day appeared aimed squarely at East Coast fundraisers and Washington political insiders rather than Alaska voters waking up to news of the race.

The fundraising slipup also comes as Peltola carries significant political baggage from her brief tenure in Congress. During her time in the U.S. House, she developed one of the poorest attendance records among Alaska’s congressional delegation in decades, missing key votes while Alaska faced rising energy costs, inflation, and federal regulatory pressure on its resource economy.

In 2024, she endorsed President Joe Biden’s reelection bid, aligning herself with an administration that restricted Alaska energy development, canceled leases, and pushed policies that increased the cost of living across the state. She consistently voted with Democratic leadership in Washington, including on major spending packages and social policy measures that were deeply unpopular with many Alaska voters.

Peltola has also supported policies allowing biological males to compete in women’s sports if they identify as female, a position that has sparked controversy across the country and in Alaska, particularly among parents and athletes concerned about fairness and safety.

Now, with her Senate campaign barely a day old, Peltola’s first major headline is not about Alaska issues or her vision for the state, but about a bungled fundraising link that sent Alaska donors to a New Hampshire Democrat and commingled her funds with Kamala Harris, the failed presidential candidate.

For a candidate promising to put Alaska first, the sloppy launch suggested that Washington’s political machinery may already be calling the shots.