Rep. Mary Peltola’s campaign leaked the news to Axios’ newsroom first: She has $2.5 million in available cash for her reelection campaign. The campaign numbers won’t be revealed officially until around April 15, but she sent them to the Outside news organization as a scoop.
Peltola’s last report, covering the fourth quarter for 2023, showed she had pulled in $2.9 million, had spent $1.8 million, and had $1.77 million cash on hand.
By comparison, in 2020, Congressman Don Young raised $1.9 million in total for his reelection campaign. But in this quarter alone, Axios reports, Peltola has $2.5 million to spend. She has raised at least $4.6 million for her campaign since she ran for Congress in 2022, the year Don Young died.
This is possibly the most any House candidate has ever raised for Alaska’s at-large congressional seat in one quarter. It’s a seat many Democrat campaign groups believe is at risk, since Alaska is still a Republican state, having a Republican governor and two Republican senators.
“Campaigning in Alaska isn’t easy, and in this tough race, every dollar counts,” Peltola told Axios, which was founded by former staffers from the Politico news organization.
Two Republicans, Nick Begich and Nancy Dahlstrom, are also running for Congress. Their fundraising totals have not yet been released, but if they aren’t splitting the vote, they’re surely splitting the fundraising potential for Republicans. They have each raised around $200,000 in prior quarters. The FEC numbers are released later this month, but it appears that even combined, the Republican side has a fraction of what Peltola has been able to raise.
Peltola, who has endorsed President Joe Biden, is running in a presidential election year in which Donald Trump is likely to be the winner of the popular vote in Alaska. Biden is deeply unpopular in the 49th state, and Peltola’s popularity has also slipped , as her voting record shows a pattern of clinging to the left wing of her party, in support of Rep. Hakeem Jeffries for House Speaker and siding with Rep. Nancy Pelosi over 90% of the time, while voting with her party 88% of the time.
In fact, Peltola owes much of her campaign fundraising success to her fellow Democrats, who have chipped in with large amounts from their own political action committees to keep her in office after November. This becomes a political IOU to the Democrats in the next congressional calendar.
Political analysts have noted that Peltola’s burn rate on her campaign cash has been high. She has spent a lot of money to acquire national donors, and she has spent money on revising her image, with a new brand identity on her website and marketing materials.
Whoever recruited Nancy Dahlstrom into this race needs to have their head examined. She can’t win but she can make sure we lose!
Nancy Dahlstrom is the Mike Pence of Alaska. You can safely bet she will do nothing.
It won’t matter until the voters get mad.
She unfortunately will win because most Alaskans don’t care.
When they get taxed more and loose more freedoms they won’t care.
Nancy screwed up the ranked choice repeal books. She’s a terrible Lt Gov and she would be even worse in Washington.
The Repeal Rank Choice Voting Petition books were approved because there were enough signatures that were properly verifiable and were verified by the state. Dahlstrom didn’t screw that part up. The fact that Alaskans even had to go to this level to show that we want another vote on that lousy system because our legislators does not have the cahoonas to do their job and remove the system is pathetic. We the People make the choices on what we want and what we do not want – not a small group sitting in their hideway in Juneau!
Unless people are very wise, and actually bother to vote, she’s gonna win.
Avenger, the notion of a “wise people” may exist as a functional trope for the naive. Although I suspect that even for them the “very wise” would be otherworldly. That aside, I’ll kick back and read a little apologetic theology and damn all the political operatives to hell! You, though, might find three wise men at one of the upcoming Christmas pageants following the election!
Those of us at Lucifer’s send you our regards!
Edit: “apocalyptic theology”
I gave up the dream of wise voters decades ago.
Dahlstrom needs to get out of the Race! She truly has nothing to add and will be the spoiler helping to elect Mary with lots of Names.
Dahlstrom needs to get out of the race because she oversees the elections. How is this legal that she oversees the elections and is running as a candidate in the elections?
Moreover, why aren’t our journalists asking Dahlstrom how this is okay for her to run when she is overseeing the elections?
I think members of Congress should not be able to contribute to each others elections. Remember in her last race a PAC run by Mitch McConnell gave Murkowski a huge advantage? I maintain that our elected officials should be elected by the people, not by each other!
Murkowski should be serving jail time in a cell next to Sam Bankman Fried for accepting his laundered money.
Wouldn’t that be nice! But no chance.
Suzanne pretends that the amount of money raised is outrageous and driven by Peltola, but it’s actually expected. When Don was the incumbent, the outcome was never in doubt. No one wanted to waste their money on a sure winner (Don) or a sure loser (whoever Don was running against). Once Don was gone, the seat became competitive and money poured in from everywhere. Of course it will be the most expensive race in Alaska history, with huge out of state $$$ invested in the candidates. Duh.
Corrrection.. Alaska has ONE Republican (sort of) senator Sullivan is only sort of. princess is not at all!!
This is a repeat of the last election. Two Republicans who will split the vote and Peltola will get all the Democrat votes. RCV works again.
Your right Jim. Nick’s 2nd choice Blue Votes will vote for Mary
And if he’s not in the race they’ll just be Mary’s 1st place votes. We need Dahlstrom to drop or we will lose.
Good for Peltola. And she did it without hawking Made in China $400 gold sneakers and fake bibles.
Except for those calluses on her knees…
Are you saying it is better to give than receive?
And she doesn’tHave to stand on a street corner to practice her real occupation
First and foremost, you need to understand and accept the fact that people who get into politics, do so to reach the federal level where they make MILLIONS of dollars. No matter the flavor of said politician, they are there to MAKE MONEY. Now then, rest assured that Mary will be the lone Representative and will be till she either dies like The Don or retires. She will undoubtedly win every election. Our populace of the purple turning blue state of Alaska needs to accept this as fact because what’s left of the Conservatives have turned a blind eye where complacency has led us down this path.
True statement.
It’s us against the politicians.
1. Don didn’t make millions or anything close to it. It’s easy to check – use the Google thingy.
2. Why vote for Nancy or Nick if they’re just doing it to become millionaires?
I suggest you revoke your voter registration as a matter of principle and sit this one out.
As with her last run for office, this should again expose Ranked Choice Voting for the sham that it is. Advertised as a solution to how a candidate with little exposure and no money can compete with the fat cats, in reality, this is how it’s done: Choose a warm body (in this case one without a functioning frontal lobe), throw million$ in her direction and, problems solved. Said problems are conveniently shifted to the state she represents. John Fetterman was far more functional in the midst of his post-stroke recovery than Mary Peltola ever will be on the best day of her life. And, I totally agree with Ken; Nancy Dahlstrom needs to get out or get herself on The Masked Singer. It seemed to have worked for Palin.
Why are campaign funds so important now-a-days? What happened to the days when we focused on the candidate and their message instead of how much campaign money they raised? I think that there should be a ceiling on how much a candidate can have for campaigning. Getting on and talking to the people costs very little – what happened to this? Is Mary going to win because she has more money?
From Investopedia – The contributions can be used in the following ways:
Donations to charities as long as the candidate does not receive any compensation from the organizations before it is spent and the donation is not used by the charity to benefit the candidate.
A donation of a maximum of $2,000 to another federal candidate, and donations to state or local candidates subject to state law.
Gift or donations of nominal value on special occasions to anyone besides the candidate’s family.
Unlimited transfers to a local, state, or national political party committee like the Democratic or Republican National Committees.
Transfer to a future election campaign committee of the same candidate. For example, Bernie Sanders transferred $12.7 million from previous campaigns to his 2020 presidential committee.
Creation of a leadership PAC to back other candidates and a political agenda. Critics say these can be used as slush funds since there are few restrictions on this kind of spending.
What was her message last election cycle and had she kept her campaign promises? What does she stand for except, look how much I have raised for my election and nothing about what she has done for (to?) the people of Alaska (all of us, not just the favored few) while in D.C. as our representative?
I am beginning to think the average Somali has a higher IQ than the average Alaskan. Stumped by rank choice voting. Wow.
Nick the Three has never won an election of any kind.
And yet he’s tied with Peltola – Palin is the only reason Begich isn’t congressman
I wonder how much of that funding comes from outside, and is using some “loophole” in the dark money prohibition.
Don’t forget all that 1.2 million came from non Alaskans. Alaskans democrat donors don’t have much to donate and don’t think they have that much donate. Peltola is bought and paid for by outside Democrats.
With RINO Dahlstrom as Peltola’s opponent the Uniparty in Alaska has been assured of a win/win election!
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