Alaska lieutenant governor announces bid to unseat Peltola

Alaska’s lieutenant governor announced on Tuesday that she’s running to unseat the state’s at-large Democratic congresswoman, a major recruiting win for Republicans eager to flip one of the most competitive House seats in the country.

In a news release, Nancy Dahlstrom, a self-described “conservative Republican” who has served as Alaska’s lieutenant governor since December 2022, said “Alaska needs a proven tough fighter to stop the assault on Alaska from Joe Biden and Washington D.C. liberals.”

“Alaska needs Washington D.C. to stop working against us, and no one will fight harder for Alaska’s way of life than me,” Dahlstrom continued.

Dahlstrom’s entry into the race was cheered by Republicans, who say she is the strongest candidate to unseat Rep. Mary Peltola (D-Alaska), the state’s only House member whose upset win in an August 2022 special election sent shockwaves through the political universe. Republicans have identified Alaska’s sole House seat as one of their top targets in the 2024 election.

“This is a recruiting coup by @NRCC. Game changer in Alaska,” tweeted Dan Conston, the president of the Congressional Leadership Fund, a super PAC tied to House Speaker Mike Johnson and House Republican leadership.

Peltola, an Alaska Native and former member of the Alaska House of Representatives, filled the seat left vacant by Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska), the dean of the House of Representatives and Alaska’s long-time representative who died while traveling back to Alaska in March 2022.

She would go on to win a full term in November of that year, defeating former Alaska governor and 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin and Republican activist Nick Begich. Under Alaska’s ranked-choice voting system, voters rank candidates in order of preference and votes are redistributed in successive elimination rounds.

Peltola's campaign manager, Elisa Rios, told POLITICO that the Democrat spoke with Dahlstrom on Wednesday and "welcomed her to the race." Rios also said Peltola "looks forward to discussing the issues with her this next year."

"Mary gets that this isn't her seat, it's Alaska's sole seat in the House. It's up to her to prove to Alaskans every two years that she's the right person to fight for them in DC. And she's focused on doing just that - delivering for the Alaska," Rios said in a statement to POLITICO.

Begich is running again for the seat, setting up another tightly contested race in the state. Begich’s name carries significant weight in Alaska. His uncle Mark Begich served as the mayor of Anchorage, the state’s largest city, and was a U.S. senator from 2009 to 2015. His other uncle, Tom Begich, served two terms in the Alaska State Senate. His grandfather and namesake, Nick Begich Sr., was the state’s at-large member of Congress until he died in a plane crash in 1972.

Begich made it clear on Tuesday he's not backing down now that Dahlstrom has entered the race.

"Our team is 100% focused on continuing to build our already significant statewide effort to defeat Mary Peltola and restore commonsense, fiscally responsible representation on behalf of Alaska," Begich said in a statement to POLITICO.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this report misstated the years during which Mark Begich was a U.S. senator.