Democratic Senate nominee Mary Peltola missed nearly one in five votes in the Alaska state House, more than a third of Bethel City Council meetings, and hundreds of roll-call votes in Congress, a pattern her Republican opponent's allies call disqualifying.
Legislative and municipal records reviewed by Fox News Digital show Peltola racked up 794 missed votes out of 4,265 during five terms in the Alaska House of Representatives between 1999 and 2009, an absence rate of 18.6 percent. Her worst stretch came during the 23rd Legislature in 2003 and 2004, when she missed 334 of 1,019 House votes.
The numbers did not improve when Peltola moved to local government. During her two years on the Bethel City Council from 2011 to 2013, she missed 22 of 60 meetings, 36.67 percent. In 2013 alone, she skipped nine of 22 council sessions. The year before, she missed 11 of 32.
And when Alaska voters sent her to Washington in 2022, the pattern followed. GovTrack data show Peltola missed 235 of 1,370 roll-call votes during her single U.S. House term, 17.2 percent. No bill or resolution for which she served as primary sponsor became law during that stretch.
Peltola's absenteeism spans every level of government she has served. The state legislative records cover a full decade, from her first term in 1999 through her fifth term ending in 2009. Across those ten years, she cast roughly four out of every five votes, but the one she missed adds up to a substantial total at 794.
Her campaign offered an explanation. A spokesperson said three of Peltola's seven children were born during her state House tenure and that she took maternity leave. The campaign also pointed to "fish camp summers" and other priorities as reasons for the gaps. Excluding formally excused absences, the campaign claimed Peltola missed only about six percent of state House votes, though the basis for which absences qualified as excused, and under what authority, was not detailed.
The campaign spokesperson framed the record this way:
"Three of Mary's children were born during her time in the state legislature and she took maternity leave. That didn't stop her from working hard for Alaskans, from passing bills to improve public safety in rural Alaska to increasing Alaska energy production."
Maternity leave is a reasonable explanation for some portion of missed votes. But 794 absences over five terms, with the single worst session producing 334 missed votes in a single two-year legislature, raises a fair question about whether the explanation covers the full scope of the problem.
After leaving the state House, Peltola joined the Bethel City Council, where she served from 2011 to 2013. Bethel is a small city in western Alaska, the kind of community where local government decisions on infrastructure, public safety, and services carry outsized weight for residents. The council met roughly twice a month.
Peltola missed 22 of those 60 meetings. That is not a rounding error. It is more than a third of the scheduled sessions, a rate higher than her state House absences. The 2012 calendar was particularly thin: she missed 11 of 32 meetings. In 2013, she missed nine of 22.
The Alaska Senate race is not the only Democratic primary contest drawing scrutiny this cycle. But Peltola's case stands apart because the attendance questions follow her across three separate offices and more than two decades of public service.
Peltola won Alaska's at-large House seat in a 2022 special election and served through 2024. GovTrack, the nonpartisan congressional tracking service, recorded her missing 235 of 1,370 roll-call votes during that term, a 17.2 percent absence rate that mirrored her state House numbers almost exactly.
Breitbart reported that the Alaska news outlet Must Read Alaska found Peltola was absent for 40 of the last 100 U.S. House votes, including votes on protecting America from foreign adversaries and holding then-Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt. Must Read Alaska wrote at the time that "Alaska has been unrepresented for 40 of the last 100 votes taken, as Rep. Mary Peltola has gone missing."
Beyond the missed votes, no bill or resolution that Peltola introduced as primary sponsor became law during her House tenure. The National Republican Senatorial Committee highlighted that gap in a post on X earlier this year:
"She couldn't even get a single bill signed into law. Now, she wants a promotion."
Peltola's campaign pushed back by pointing to her opponent's record. A spokesperson argued that Sen. Dan Sullivan had also missed a significant number of votes and committee hearings, including unspecified fisheries subcommittee sessions. But the campaign did not provide specific numbers for Sullivan's absences, a notable omission when your own candidate's numbers are laid out in public records across three offices.
Sullivan, a two-term Republican incumbent backed by President Trump, has had several bills signed into law during his Senate tenure. The contrast in legislative output is difficult for Peltola's team to wave away.
Alaska's political landscape has produced its own share of unusual twists this cycle. An election official recently removed an impostor "Dan Sullivan" from the Senate ballot over deliberate voter confusion, a reminder that the state's elections draw national attention for reasons beyond the candidates themselves.
Despite the attendance record, Peltola finished ahead of Sullivan in Tuesday's nonpartisan primary. Alaska uses a top-four primary system, sending four candidates to a general election decided by ranked-choice voting. Both Peltola and Sullivan advanced to November.
Peltola announced her Senate bid in January 2026, positioning herself as a Democrat who could compete in a deep-red state. She also turned down an endorsement from former Vice President Kamala Harris, a decision that may signal an effort to distance herself from the national Democratic brand in a state where that brand carries significant baggage.
RNC spokesperson Nick Poche made clear how Republicans plan to frame the general election fight:
"Alaskans deserve an all-the-time workhorse like Dan Sullivan, not someone like Peltola who knifes Alaskans in the back when she even bothers to show up."
The language is sharp, but the underlying argument is straightforward: voters hire their representatives to show up and do the work. When a candidate's record shows a pattern of absences at the city council level, the state legislature level, and the congressional level, across more than twenty years, the burden falls on that candidate to explain why the next office will be different.
Peltola's campaign has offered partial explanations. Maternity leave accounts for some state House absences. Fish camp summers account for others. But neither explanation covers the Bethel City Council gaps, the final stretch of missed House votes in Washington, or the zero bills signed into law.
The question of whether elected officials actually do the job they were hired for is not a partisan issue in theory. In practice, the voters who bear the cost of empty seats and missed votes tend to notice when the pattern becomes undeniable.
Several gaps remain in the public record. Which specific votes did Peltola miss during her worst stretches in Juneau and Washington, and were any of them consequential to Alaska policy? What is the formal basis for the campaign's claim that only six percent of state House absences count once excused absences are removed? Who decides which absences are excused, and by what standard?
Sullivan's record deserves scrutiny too, and voters are entitled to see his numbers. But the Peltola campaign's decision to counter with vague allegations about Sullivan's missed hearings, without providing a single specific figure, does not inspire confidence that the comparison would work in their favor.
Internal Democratic tensions have surfaced in primaries across the country this cycle, from factional challenges within the party's progressive wing to broader questions about candidate quality. Peltola's case is less about ideology than about a basic expectation: if taxpayers are paying your salary, you show up for the job.
Alaskans now have four months to decide whether a candidate who missed nearly one in five votes at every level of government she has served deserves a seat in the United States Senate. The numbers are in the public record. The explanations are on the table. The question is whether showing up most of the time is good enough for a job that demands all of the time.