Alaska Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola declined to say whether she will vote for her party’s presidential candidate, and her Republican challenger, Nick Begich, questioned the legitimacy of President Joe Biden’s 2020 electoral win during a televised debate Thursday evening.
The debate, conducted by Alaska Public Media and KTUU-TV, was the fourth of the general election for Alaska’s U.S. House race, but the first to raise social issues facing Americans this year.
Biden definitively won the 2020 presidential election, but Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance have repeatedly echoed conspiracy theories about the result.
Moderators Lori Townsend and Rebecca Palsha asked Begich whether Biden legitimately won.
“He was elected president. The techniques that were used in order to get him elected, I don’t think they’re legitimate,” Begich said.
He alleged that Google was censoring search results and “last-minute (elections) changes under the guise of the COVID emergency” could have affected the result.
“And so I think it’s worth looking at that. I think it’s acceptable and reasonable for any American to question, hey, is this reasonable? Is this what we expect in a free and fair election? And I think the answer is a clear ‘No,’ and I hope we don’t see those same tactics deployed here in the last few weeks of the campaign,” Begich said.
Peltola faced a similarly direct question about her support for her party’s presidential nominee. She was the lone member of Alaska’s Democratic delegation to not vote for Kamala Harris at the party’s convention.
During a July news conference, she said she wasn’t sure whether she would vote for Harris in November.
On Thursday night, she was asked directly whether she will be voting for Harris. She did not answer with a yes or no.
“It’s a secret ballot,” she said. “Much of the concern that we have will be around — who are they choosing as their senior advisers? And again, I think both candidates are flawed, and I don’t know why I would use up any of my gas on a race I don’t have any control over.”
Though Alaska has only one seat in the 435-person U.S. House of Representatives, the state’s race is particularly important nationally because Peltola is one of just four Democrats who represent a district that voted for Trump in the 2020 presidential election.
That means Alaska could go Republican or Democratic this fall, and because the House is closely split between Republican and Democratic lawmakers, Alaska’s status as a swing district has drawn millions of dollars in political spending.
On Thursday night, Begich noted that almost $2 million has been spent on Peltola’s behalf by a political committee that promotes cryptocurrency.
According to Federal Elections Commission filings, third-party groups have spent more than $11.6 million on Alaska’s U.S. House race so far, the fifth-most of all House races nationwide.
Thursday’s debate was the third this week, following a two-hour fisheries panel in Kodiak on Tuesday and a debate hosted by the Alaska Chamber of Commerce earlier Thursday.
A forum for ConocoPhillips employees has been scheduled for later this month, and the Anchorage Chamber of Commerce has scheduled a debate for Oct. 21.
Alaska’s general election system allows four candidates to advance from the primary election, but because he received less than 5% of the vote in the August primary, Alaskan Independence Party candidate John Wayne Howe wasn’t invited to either of Thursday’s debates.
The No. 4 candidate, Democrat Eric Hafner, also did not appear in either debate. He’s in prison in New York state after being sentenced to a 20-year term for threatening public officials.
The televised debate was the first time since the primary that Peltola and Begich were asked on a debate stage about whether they would support a federal ban on abortion.
Peltola has made her opposition a campaign issue and reiterated that opposition on TV.
“I absolutely do not support a ban, and I do believe in women’s reproductive rights. I trust women and I trust their doctors. I don’t think politicians have any business being in this discussion,” she said.
She said she opposes bans at both the state and federal level, implying that she would act to prohibit states from banning abortion.
Begich said he would not support a national ban and prefers to leave the issue up to individual states.
“I believe in local control, and this is something that we decide locally. And no, I would not support a ban or a guarantee,” he said.
That contradicts an answer he gave in a preprimary questionnaire submitted by an anti-abortion group. In that questionnaire, Begich said he would support a national ban on abortions after the 12th week of pregnancy.
In a prerecorded video broadcast during the debate, Steller Secondary School student Amelia Brooks asked the candidates how they would protect schools from school shootings while also protecting Second Amendment gun rights.
Neither Begich nor Peltola advocated restrictions on firearms or ammunition.
“The common thread throughout all of these terrible tragedies is a person, somebody who is inflicting this, who is isolated, who doesn’t feel seen or heard,” she said of school shootings. “We need to make sure that every child, every child in our community, every child in our school, feels seen and heard.”
Begich said, “The right of the people to keep their arms shall not be infringed. That’s our Second Amendment right, and it’s something that I believe strongly in.”
He advocated greater funding for school programs that train gun safety and responsible firearm ownership.
“I believe that training responsible firearm ownership at an early age is a great way to push back against the risk that was just described,” he said.
After the cameras turned off, the candidates shared a handshake and spoke cordially before leaving Anchorage’s public television studio.
“I think there is a contrast between me and Mary, and that’s good, that’s healthy,” Begich said as he stepped down from the stage. “That’s what we need to make decisions. If we were the same people, it’d be very difficult to make decisions about who to support.”
• James Brooks is a longtime Alaska reporter, having previously worked at the Anchorage Daily News, Juneau Empire, Kodiak Mirror and Fairbanks Daily News-Miner. This article originally appeared online at alaskabeacon.com. Alaska Beacon, an affiliate of States Newsroom, is an independent, nonpartisan news organization focused on connecting Alaskans to their state government.
