Influence-peddler Mary Peltola’s hypocritical warfare

By SUZANNE DOWNING

Influence peddler Mary Peltola’s newest campaign message is that politicians are crooked, corrupted by special interests, and controlled by billionaires. It’s a familiar progressive talking point, and in fact it has been pointed out by President Donald Trump.

But in Peltola’s case, it’s also somewhat ironic. She is saying the thing she is doing the same thing she accuses others of doing. She points a finger at others, but three of her fingers are pointing back at herself.

After losing her congressional seat, Peltola didn’t head back to rural Alaska or private life. She went straight into the influence industry, landing at Holland & Hart, one of the most powerful law and lobbying firms operating in Alaska and the West.

Holland & Hart’s government affairs professionals openly market their ability to leverage former government experience to help clients navigate legislative affairs, regulatory compliance, government contracting, and enforcement actions. In plain English: influence-peddling.

Peltola wasn’t hired for her legal expertise. She has none. She was hired for her political connections, her perceived sway, and her access. This is the very influence ecosystem she now pretends to oppose.

She was reportedly making around $400,000 a year, not to serve Alaskans, but to bring in business by trading on her political résumé. The problem? She didn’t deliver. By multiple accounts, she brought in little to no business, and the firm couldn’t wait to cut her loose.

Now, suddenly, billionaires are bad. Wealth is suspect. Success is bad (Buzzy Peltola, we’re looking at you). The political class is corrupt (she never said that about Don Young). Except when she’s part of it, of course.

That message collapses under even the lightest scrutiny.

In her 2024 campaign alone, Mary Peltola raised $13.2 million. Her donor base was dominated by the very professional and elite classes she now demonizes: securities and investment employees ($619,000 from wealthy investors), lawyers and law firm employees ($426,000), Democratic and liberal ideological groups ($394,000), and aligned progressive networks spanning finance, tech, and professional class activism. Sure, she got donations from fishermen and village elders, but these didn’t fund her campaign. It’s the affluent professionals and national donor networks, and ideological political machines like ActBlue.

She had the most expensive campaign in Alaska congressional history and it was not all small donors, as she’d like you to believe.

But she’s going for populism, and class warfare is her foundation.

Peltola’s new message is about dividing Alaskans into moral categories: the “good people” who are Democrat voters, and the “bad wealthy people” who are, presumably, Republican voters.

If you’ve built a successful business, invested wisely, created jobs, or prospered in your career, you are now cast as part of the problem. If you’ve done well in life, Mary Peltola seems to believe you should be ashamed of it.

The contradiction doesn’t stop there. While attacking wealthy donors and elites, she simultaneously targets what she calls a corrupt political system, a system she actively benefited from, financially and professionally for years. While condemning influence networks, she joined one of the major ones. While railing against DC power structures, she cashed in on them.

Peltola also claims Washington, DC is “shutting down Alaska,” despite the reality that the current Trump Administration and Alaska’s delegation are actively working to open Alaska — on energy development, infrastructure, resource access, and economic growth. The narrative doesn’t match reality. It’s grievance politics, not governance.

But this is all message tested, focus grouped, and polled. It’s what resonates with Alaska Democrats, who are Bernie Sanders supporters. It’s not lost on me that she’s spent over $200,000 on social media ads in her first two weeks of official campaigning. That is an unprecedented amount for Alaska.

Peltola is cashing in on the Democrats’ current Marxist strategy, aimed at energizing a hardcore progressive base through resentment politics. She’ll divide Alaskans by income, success, and status, while pretending to stand on moral high ground.

Mary’s waging class warfare dressed up in a virtuous kuspuk.

Suzanne Downing is founder and editor of The Alaska Story and is a longtime Alaskan.