Amid her grief, Ms. Peltola lost her 2024 re-election bid, to Nick Begich, a Republican — albeit by less than three points in a year when President Trump won Alaska by 14. She moved to Anchorage and was hired by a lobbying firm, making more than $340,000, according to a financial disclosure. Last fall, she was, briefly, a fellow at the Institute of Politics at the University of Chicago, teaching a seminar she titled “Blood Lines: What Does Being Native Even Mean?”
All the while, Senator Chuck Schumer, the minority leader, worked to persuade her to run for the Senate. He considered her one of his top recruits.
“She is special,” said Lauren French, a Senate Majority PAC spokeswoman. “She has everything that it takes to be really successful there.”
Ms. Peltola thought so, too.
“I know that there’s a tendency to say people are half something, half another,” Ms. Peltola told The Times. “But I always thought of it as double. I really had, you know, double the language, double the perspectives, really different perspectives, really different values, really different worldviews — but double. And I thought that was a huge advantage.”
Behind the scenes
All summer long, she was all over — in Alakanuk and Savoonga and Nome, in Gambell and Galena and Unalakleet, in Dutch Harbor and Fort Yukon and Tok — listening to voters in school gyms, union halls and community theaters, hugging, waving and smiling on Facebook, Instagram and X.