Former Rep. Mary Peltola (D-AK) announced Monday that she’s entering the Senate race against Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK) in Alaska, giving Democrats an outside chance of picking up the red-state Senate seat.

Peltola, the first Alaska Native elected to Congress, served for just over one term in the House from 2022 until she lost reelection in 2024, filling the final few months of former Rep. Don Young’s (R-AK) term after he died in office and winning a full term in the November 2022 election. Peltola is the the most recent Democrat to win statewide office in Alaska, and benefited in her House races from the state’s new ranked-choice voting system.

She has been viewed as Democrats’ best and perhaps only hope for unseating Sullivan.

Serving as a leader of the moderate Democrats’ Blue Dog caucus, Peltola was a prominent centrist voice in the House. Her agenda focused primarily on local Alaskan issues, and she was an at times heterodox voice in the Democratic Party. In her launch announcement, Peltola focused on putting aside partisanship and prioritizing quality of life and cost of living issues for Alaskans. “It’s about time Alaskans teach the rest of the country what Alaska First and, really, America First looks like,” Peltola said.

Peltola also maintained a strongly pro-Israel voting record, breaking on numerous occasions with a majority of her party to vote for measures supporting the Jewish state post-Oct. 7. She supported a standalone Israel aid package opposed by many Democrats, as well as a measure to override the Biden administration’s hold on U.S. arms sales to Israel that only a handful of other Democrats voted for.

She also supported a series of measures to combat Iran and its proxies, including stringent restrictions blocking nearly any sanctions relief for the Iranian regime and re-imposing a Foreign Terrorist Organization designation on the Houthis. Peltola also voted in favor of sanctions on the International Criminal Court.

And she supported measures to combat antisemitism, including the Antisemitism Awareness Act, a resolution describing anti-Zionism as antisemitic and a resolution condemning university presidents for their testimony on campus antisemitism before a House committee, though she voted against censuring Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) for antisemitic and anti-Israel activity.

Sullivan, for his part, has been a hawkish pro-Israel voice in the Senate, pushing for a more aggressive stance toward Iran as well as serving as a top critic of Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby.

In 2020, Sullivan beat Democratic-backed independent candidate Al Gross by more than 12 points. Democrats still face an uphill battle, but Cook Political Report shifted the race from “Solid Republican” to “Lean Republican” with Peltola’s entry, a signal that Democrats have a fighting chance to flip the seat.