Ed Wesley, a Black Army veteran, made a promise to Mary Peltola’s campaign in the fall of 2024: the tables at an upcoming dinner would fill.
The campaign took him at his word. It bought eight tables at the event, which honored nearly 4,000 Black soldiers and which Wesley had promoted.
The room delivered something else. Most of those tables stayed empty.
What happened next, according to former Peltola staffers, now drives one of the sharpest disputes in Alaska’s U.S. Senate race.
Two anonymous former staffers told the outlet Alaska Landmine that Peltola, then Alaska’s lone representative in the U.S. House, heard about the thin turnout and erupted.
They say she repeatedly branded Wesley a “scammer.” Those staffers say the gap between the promised crowd and the real one set off the confrontation.
One of them also recounted a line attributed to her. “I can’t believe that n****r,” the former staffer recalled Peltola saying.
Her campaign met the report with a flat denial. A spokesperson told the outlet the allegation was “part of a smear campaign driven by an unstable, disgruntled former staffer who was fired.”
“Mary would never use this word, which is a vile slur with a painful, hateful history,” the spokesperson said.
The Landmine story arrived alongside other accusations. Former staffers have also accused Peltola of using the term “retard” and a gay slur, and of physically shoving a male staffer.
The New York Times drew on interviews with nine unnamed former staffers.
Four of them told the newspaper they heard Peltola use a homophobic slur over the years, according to Alaska’s News Source.
The campaign denies that. The Times also reported that in one 2024 incident, Peltola shoved an aide, and the campaign denies any pattern of abusive behavior.
A text message figured in a separate matter.
The Times reported that Peltola used a slur about people with intellectual disabilities in it, and the campaign said she recognizes the word was inappropriate and regrets using it.
The sources asked to stay anonymous, CNN reported, citing fear of retaliation or professional repercussions.
After the Times published its initial article, the Alaska Beacon contacted more than a dozen former Peltola aides in an attempt to verify its contents.
The campaign told the Anchorage Daily News that the accounts amount to “exaggerating and outright lying.”
Not every former staffer told a negative story. One former aide described Peltola to the Times as “one of the finest human beings” for whom he had worked.
The Alaska Democratic Party has also stood by her.
Its statement cited her history in Alaska’s commercial fishing world and the deaths of her mother and husband during her time as the state’s lone U.S. House representative.
Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan, her opponent, called the allegations of abusive behavior toward staff “very disturbing,” CNN reported.
At a debate, Sullivan cited the Times reporting and said 25 employees had quit while working for Peltola.
After the Times article appeared, he and Republican organizations pointed to the allegations as a reason voters should not back her.
Peltola declined to take reporters’ questions on the Times allegations after a Wednesday town hall, Alaska’s News Source reported. She left without responding.
The slur claims have landed in a campaign already dealing with the “decoy Dan” controversy.
That dispute centers on allegations that Democratic operatives worked to recruit a second candidate named Dan Sullivan, with the goal of undermining the Republican incumbent.
A New York Times report named Democratic political operatives associated with Peltola’s campaign as the people behind a scheme to recruit candidates who share the senator’s name.
Elisa Rios, Peltola’s former campaign manager, said Peltola played no part in the project but was “definitely aware of it.”
Peltola won a 2022 special election to become the first Alaska Native in the U.S. House.
She now seeks to help Democrats retake the Senate in the 2026 midterms, and her campaign maintains that the n-word allegation is false.
