Fish Become The Newest Political Football In Senate Race Democrats Desperately Want To Flip

Former Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola has made fishing the centerpiece of her campaign to unseat Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan in Alaska.

Peltola, who is Yup’ik and grew up fishing on the Kuskokwim River, has revived her longtime “Fish, Family, Freedom” slogan from her House campaigns and is calling for a ban on factory trawling.

“I’m the only candidate on this stage who’s an Alaskan fisherman. Fish is in my blood, earned over generations on the water,” Peltola said at a Sept. 12 fisheries debate hosted by the Kodiak Chamber of Commerce, the Alaska Beacon reported.

The Peltola and Sullivan campaigns and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s requests for comment.

The fight centers on bycatch — the salmon, halibut and crab swept up in the nets of large trawlers harvesting pollock and other groundfish in the Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska — which many Alaskans blame, at least in part, for weak salmon runs and declining halibut and crab stocks, the outlet reported.

The race could help decide which party controls the Senate, Gunnar Knapp, a retired University of Alaska Anchorage economist, told the Beacon.

Brett Watson, an economist at the University of Alaska Anchorage, told the outlet he could not recall fishing issues playing “such a central role in a statewide or federal campaign.”

Peltola and her supporters accuse Sullivan of siding with out-of-state industrial fishing companies that contribute to his campaign, according to the outlet.

North Star, a political action committee backing Peltola, says on its website that Sullivan “is looking out for his rich donors” and that “it’s costing us.”

Sullivan’s Bycatch Reduction Act cleared the Senate Commerce Committee on Sept. 16, and he called it “the most comprehensive trawl bycatch reduction bill, really, ever” in a video posted to social media, the Beacon reported.

Sullivan’s office described the bill as an updated version of bycatch legislation he introduced last year. It would still need to pass the full Senate and the House to become law.

Sullivan also takes credit for the first-ever caps on chum salmon bycatch in the Bering Sea pollock fishery, which the North Pacific Fishery Management Council approved in February, according to the Beacon.

“My opponent would empower a Seattle, Washington-based senator to be the next chairman of the Commerce Committee,” Sullivan said at the Kodiak debate, referring to Democratic Washington Sen. Maria Cantwell. Washington is home to much of the trawl industry.

Peltola has also criticized Sullivan for supporting cuts at NOAA, which she says have hurt the agency’s ability to survey fish stocks, the outlet reported.

“We are flying blind without the surveys and the research that NOAA does,” she said at the debate.

Sullivan said at the same event that he is “a strong supporter of our surveys” and helped secure an additional $10 million for NOAA to conduct them, according to the Beacon.

Peltola introduced her own bycatch bill in 2024, which trawl industry groups urged her to withdraw, while Sullivan’s bill has drawn less industry opposition, the outlet reported.

President Donald Trump has vowed to campaign in Alaska for Sullivan, the Beacon reported.

Alaska’s seafood industry lost an estimated $1.8 billion from 2022 to 2023, according to a NOAA analysis.