Following a New York Times report detailing allegations of angry outbursts, use of slurs and an alleged shove by Alaska Senate candidate Mary Peltola against former staffers, prominent Democrats and liberal commentators have publicly defended her, questioning the credibility of the article. A Native American woman might join the Senate and help stop authoritarianism, and they focus instead on her bad temper toward her aides? This is b******t on so many levels,” former New York City mayor Bill de Blasio, a Democrat, wrote on X.
Political analyst Nate Silver also dismissed the relevance of the allegations, though in milder terms than de Blasio, writing on social media that “most reasonably well-adjusted people would read this and feel pretty sympathetic toward Peltola rather than her annoying staffers.” Liberal activist Charlotte Clymer called the article “a very silly and sad attempt at a hit piece.” Newsweek reached out to the Peltola campaign for comment on Thursday morning. Former aides have described to the Times a pattern of abusive behavior which the Peltola campaign has denied, while acknowledging that Peltola struggled to deal with her grief after her mother and her husband died within a few months of each other in 2023. House of Representatives thousands of miles from home, and running a competitive re-election campaign—all while shouldering the enormous burden of grief,” spokesperson Harry Child told the newspaper.
The report included accusations by ex-aides that Peltola used the slurs “faggot” and “retarded,” a word which was also used in text messages viewed and shared by the newspaper. The former congresswoman also made unusual requests to her staffers, according to former aides, including feeding live crickets to her daughter’s pet chameleon, Meatball. Peltola did not answer reporters’ questions about the Times article at a labor event in Anchorage on Wednesday night, according to Fox News’ Matt Finn.
A member of her campaign said, “We can get you a statement on this later,” and referred reporters to Peltola’s statement in the article. Peltola, who represented Alaska in the House from 2022 to 2025, is widely seen by Democrats as a strong candidate for ousting Republican incumbent Dan Sullivan and ultimately winning control of the U.S. Senate for the party.Within this high-stakes context, many Democratic politicians, liberal commentators, analysts and activists have hit back at The New York Times reporting, defending Peltola and calling for understanding at a time the former congresswoman was experiencing a personal tragedy.
Shouldn’t that have been closer to the top of the story instead of buried?” political consultant Neera Tanden wrote on X. Seems pretty understandable that she would be in a bad place. I cannot understand working in politics & actually caring about the country and then leaking this shit right before an election,” political commentator Tommy Vietor wrote on social media.
Progressive political consultant Lauren Windsor commented on the fact that The New York Times report mentioned many former aides signed onto this year’s political operation, saying: “Working for Peltola was SO TERRIBLE that these ‘former’ staffers came back for more. Please spare me.” Podcaster Josh Barro, a registered Democrat, criticized the former aides who spoke to the newspaper as exhibiting what he called “pathetic snowflake behavior.” He wrote on X: “as a staffer who is supposed to be partisan, to send your ex-boss’s texts to The New York Times weeks before a general election.” Adam Carlson, founding partner of Zenith Polls, called the report, “one of the most sauceless attempted hit jobs of a candidate I’ve seen in some time.” He accused the article of misreading “how the extraordinary economic pain that Alaskans are under—sky high prices on gas & consumer goods and the ailing fishing industry, all caused or exacerbated by Trump’s policies—is the overwhelming driving force in informing persuadable voters’ choice for U.S. Senate.” Author and blogger Hemant Mehta compared the allegations made against Peltola to the scandals that previously enveloped Republican candidates.
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