Rep. Mary Peltola, who is the Democrat seated in Congress on behalf of Alaska, is an automatic delegate for the Alaska Democratic Party as it heads to the national convention, which starts in Chicago on Aug. 19.
The state party joined all other 49 states, territories, and Washington, D.C. in voting formally to nominate Kamala Harris for president. The party announcement was made over the weekend.
But Peltola did not cast her vote, she told reporters this week. She doesn’t want to be involved in controversy, she said.
It calls into question whether Peltola will even attend the Democratic National Convention, even as her party’s highest elected and most prestigious official.
Normally, each state announces on the floor of the convention the state party’s vote. For Republicans, it was Gov. Mike Dunleavy who made the announcement at the Republican National Convention last month. Peltola would be the natural choice to announce her state party’s vote, which came after the national Democrats staged a coup against President Joe Biden and forced him out of the race on July 21.
But with Peltola not voting for her own party’s nominee, she likely will avoid going to Chicago, where she would not be able to keep away from reporters.
She has already said she is not voting for Donald Trump, but she is trying to salve over the awkwardness of supporting her party’s nominee. Kamala Harris and Tim Walz will likely not be popular in Alaska in November, and being tied to them is not something Democrats in Alaska will typically do. The only elected Democrat who has repeatedly come out in support of Harris is Anchorage Assembly Chairman Chris Constant. The rest are staying in their foxholes.
This isn’t the first time Peltola has avoided a vote. From bathroom breaks to fishing expeditions, she has developed a record for not showing up when the voting was under way.
In 2023, she missed a vote that related to restoring the volume of the national Strategic Petroleum Reserve. She said at the time that she had to use the bathroom.
The record showed that Peltola was present to vote over the course of two days on multiple amendments on the bill that is key to America’s national security and energy independence. But in the end, she appeared to have lost interest and left work early.
In May, she skipped voting again when the U.S. House voted to reverse a Biden decision that had canceled oil and gas leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and severely cut energy development in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska.
Peltola would not vote on that piece of legislation, which passed without Alaska’s lone representative making her views known.
Peltola voted “present” on a resolution to restore Alaska’s right to produce oil and gas in congressionally approved areas of Alaska. But she wrote a memo to Democrat colleagues in the House earlier and asked them to vote “no” on the Alaska’s Right to Produce Act. She just wouldn’t cast a vote either way.
Peltola also hid out in rural Alaska rather than go to work and vote on the House bill that would require people to be citizens and show their identification before voting.
She didn’t show up to vote against Biden’s rewrite of Title IX protections for women athletes. She was busy smoking fish in Bethel.
Last August, Peltola was unavailable in the state when Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg made his inaugural trip to Alaska. Instead, she went to a Democrat fundraiser in Colorado.
Peltola has a well-established pattern of skipping out on work. While serving on the Bethel City Council for three years, she missed 37% of the meetings, including 41% of the meetings in 2013.
The Alaska primary is underway now and will end at 8 p.m. on Aug. 20.
It’s one vote that Peltola is sure to not miss.
