Peltola centers rural fuel and grocery costs in KTUU Senate interview

High grocery and fuel prices in rural Alaska anchored Mary Peltola's pitch to voters in a televised sit-down published by KTUU in Anchorage.

Peltola, a Democrat, served as U.S. representative for Alaska's at-large district from 2022 to 2025. She discussed her U.S. Senate bid with political reporter Wil Courtney on Alaska's Political Pipeline. In the conversation she laid out her decision to enter the race, her focus on the high cost of groceries and fuel in rural Alaska, and her vision for bringing bipartisanship back to Washington, D.C. Peltola declared her candidacy on Jan. 12 against Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan, who has held the seat 12 years.

That bipartisan framing echoes language she has used elsewhere in the campaign. "My vision for Alaska is to find bipartisan solutions to move towards inclusivity and abundance," she has said, tying that approach to clean water and air, healthy salmon habitat and a strong democracy. In her January campaign launch video, Peltola described Washington as a "rigged system" that is "shutting down Alaska." She added: "We need systemic change if we're going to lower costs, save our fisheries, and fill our homes with abundance again."

Supporting context outside the KTUU interview shows how steep those rural costs have become. Sen. Lisa Murkowski told the U.S. Senate in a June 16 floor speech that fuel ran $9 a gallon in Dillingham and $14 a gallon in Nuiqsut. She said roughly 20 percent of Alaskans live off the road system and face winter price hikes of 50 percent or more because of seasonal barge deliveries. The Alaska State Legislature passed a $200 energy rebate. In a July interview with KYUK in Bethel, Peltola said she would investigate price gouging and expand fuel distribution and refining.

Alaskans in off-road communities describe the same squeeze. State Sen. Lyman Hoffman, who represents rural western Alaska, told the Alaska Senate Finance Committee that residents may see heating fuel "as high as $20, $25 a gallon." He said he did not "think anyone can even fathom spending 60% of their disposable income on energy." Peltola, writing on social media, said "empty shelves and rising costs are hitting rural Alaska hardest," with communities in the Bush "left without the basics: food, fuel, groceries." Her campaign materials tie those costs to fisheries. They cast small-scale fishers and fishing communities as needing protection from bycatch by out-of-state factory trawlers, which she says take more than 140 million pounds of bycatch in Alaska each year while Kuskokwim River salmon return rates have fallen from six per spawning fish to less than one.

The KTUU segment features Peltola alone, with no response from Sullivan. His campaign says she voted "present" on her own Alaska's Right to Produce Act and supported the Inflation Reduction Act.

Alaska's open primary is Aug. 18. The general election is Nov. 3.