Just hours before a key jungle primary decided the field for a critical Senate race the left hopes to flip, Democratic candidate Mary Peltola, a former state representative, fired numerous senior campaign staffers in what one local outlet described as a “Saturday night massacre.”
Peltola would win the all-party primary by a 48.1 percent to 42.7 percent margin over incumbent GOP Sen. Dan Sullivan on Tuesday, according to The Washington Post.
However, most of the remaining votes are likely to skew Sullivan’s way in November — including a candidate with the name Daniel J. Sullivan who ran as a Republican but was a Democratic op to draw votes away from the incumbent on the first ballot.
In addition, while polling of varying quality consistently showed Peltola ahead by anywhere between 2 to 7 percentage points in a general election matchup, a June 15-29 New York Times/Siena University poll showed Sullivan up by two. The poll was the first survey to meet the Times’ quality-control standards for its polling aggregate.
While it’s unclear why, The Alaska Landmine reported Monday that Peltola had “abruptly fired multiple senior campaign staff” over the weekend, just days before the primary.
This included two senior officials, Anton McParland and Elisa Rios, who had been with her since 2022, when she was elected to the U.S. House in 2022; Rios was her chief of staff.
Hellbound and Down 