Former staffers allege Alaska Democrat Mary Peltola used the n-word multiple times in 2024, a claim her Senate campaign calls an outright lie.
Two anonymous former aides who worked in her House office and on her campaign described separate episodes last year in which the Democrat repeatedly deployed the racial slur, according to a report first detailed by the Alaska Landmine and carried by Breitbart.
The staffers spoke only on condition of anonymity, citing fear of retaliation. Peltola’s campaign did not answer questions before publication, then branded the account “an outright lie published by a right-wing gossip blogger.”
In a second statement the campaign insisted, “Mary would never use this word, which is a vile slur with a painful, hateful history.”
The allegations arrived weeks after a New York Times report had already sketched a pattern of angry outbursts, a physical shove, and slurs across her years in office. They also land while Peltola challenges Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan in a race that could help decide control of the Senate.
One episode, the first former aide said, followed an October 25, 2024, dinner meant to honor the roughly 4,000 African American soldiers who helped build the Alaska-Canada Highway in World War II.
Army veteran Ed Wesley, a former commander of American Legion Post 34 and former president of the Anchorage NAACP, had promoted the event and pressed the campaign to buy tables. An October 18, 2024, FEC filing shows the campaign paid Eventbrite $8,000 for eight tables at $1,000 apiece.
Peltola herself did not attend. Staff later told her the tables sat mostly empty. According to the aide, she grew angry, called Wesley a “scammer,” and declared, “I can’t believe that n****r.”
The same former staffer said the language was not new and that colleagues had grown “numb” to it, including earlier use of an anti-gay slur directed at gay staffers.
A second former aide described a separate spring 2024 campaign meeting. Staff opposition research had turned up a YouTube channel run by Peltola’s son, Job Nelson, featuring self-produced rap that frequently used the same racial slur. The channel was later deleted.
In that meeting, the aide said, Peltola herself used the n-word multiple times. “It shocked everyone in the room,” the staffer recalled. No one confronted her; fear kept the room silent.
"It shocked everyone in the room."
The two accounts form the core of the Landmine report. Both former aides placed the language inside the House office and the Senate campaign apparatus.
Those claims sit atop a broader set of staff complaints that surfaced weeks earlier. The New York Post reported that nine ex-aides described a pattern of angry outbursts and offensive terms, including “r****d” and a gay slur.
On February 7, 2024, according to those accounts, Peltola became agitated over a missing document and pushed a male aide in the chest; the staffer left her team afterward. She also instituted a purge of longtime aides that included her campaign manager and chief of staff, accompanied by all-caps text messages venting frustration.
One quoted outburst captured in that reporting read, “F**k that r****d,” though the campaign said she regretted the choice of words. Another text exploded, “I hope Planned Parenthood knows that if we don’t win it’s more their loss than ours. F**K THOSE B****S.”
Campaigns that shrug off internal conduct questions often discover the bill comes due with voters, a dynamic visible when ethics scandals sank a Florida primary bid despite heavy backing.
Peltola’s team flatly rejects every allegation of racial-slur use. It offered no contemporaneous explanation for the empty tables, the FEC payment, or the deleted YouTube channel, and it did not address the earlier shove or staff purge in the latest round of statements.
The former aides remain anonymous. No audio, video, or on-the-record corroboration has been made public. Wesley and Nelson have not been quoted responding.
Still, the timing is awkward for a Democrat who has positioned herself as a bridge-builder in a purple state. Late-breaking personnel and character stories have already forced other candidates out of races once the details reached voters, including a Texas Democrat who exited after a federal fraud conviction surfaced.
Staff who once worked inside a member’s office rarely go public while a high-stakes race is underway unless they believe the pattern is real. Parallel pressure has appeared elsewhere in the current cycle, from a federal grand jury subpoena aimed at a Senate PAC to questions about how money and loyalty move through campaigns.
Even a single verified instance of a senior elected official using that slur would collide with the public standards Democrats demand of everyone else. Multiple staffers describing multiple episodes, layered on top of a documented shove and a string of vulgar texts, raises the bar the campaign must clear.
Peltola is asking Alaska voters to send her to the Senate. The people who worked closest to her are now saying the private language did not match the public brand, a gap that has undone more than one ambitious campaign when former aides finally spoke.
Voters can weigh anonymous testimony against a categorical denial. They should also notice which side needed the protection of anonymity and which side waited until after publication to answer.
Character is what holds when the room is small and the microphones are off.