Dem Candidate Once Backed by NRA Being Judged by Company She Keeps

The National Rifle Association will back Democrats, contrary to popular opinion. If they’re pro-gun, they’ll get the backing of the nation’s oldest civil rights organization. That’s all that should matter to them, after all.

But the problem is that some people will say and do anything to get an endorsement, especially if it helps them get into office, and while guilt by association is a bad thing, in general, there is something to be said for judging a person by the company they keep. Just being in the room isn’t enough, but when you actively associate with someone, it tells us a bit about who you are as a person.

And for one Alaskan Democrat, her choice of associates is questionable at best, particularly if she’s really pro-gun.

Mary Peltola is presenting herself to Alaska voters as a moderate Democrat with an independent streak. Her latest federal campaign filing, however, shows her raising money alongside one of the Democratic Party’s most outspoken radical candidates.

Alaskans for Mary, Peltola’s campaign for US Senate, reported receiving $115,000 from the “Brown, Pappas, Peltola, Talarico Senate Victory Fund,” a Washington, DC-based joint fundraising committee.

The committee’s name places Peltola alongside James Talarico, the Texas Democratic state representative and 2026 Democratic nominee for Senate against Republican Ken Paxton. It also includes Democratic Senate candidates Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Chris Pappas of New Hampshire.

The transfer appears in Peltola’s July quarterly report to the Federal Election Commission, covering campaign activity from April 1 through June 30. The same report shows $271,000 coming from the Peltola Fish Family Freedom Fund and $101,351 from Justice 2026.

Joint fundraising committees are legal and common in federal campaigns. They allow candidates and party organizations to solicit larger checks together and divide the proceeds under federal contribution limits. But they also reveal which candidates have chosen to join forces in the national fundraising apparatus.

In this case, Peltola is financially linked with a Texas radical whose public positions on guns, gender, abortion, race and religion are far outside the political mainstream for many Alaska voters.

…

Talarico told voters during a 2020 campaign appearance that he supported banning the sale of so-called assault weapons, including AR-15-style rifles, along with bans on large-capacity magazines and the adoption of universal background checks. More recently, his campaign has called for “commonsense gun safety laws.” The Reload reported on Talarico’s recorded gun-control remarks.

Peltola, by contrast, once received the National Rifle Association’s endorsement when she ran for Congress in 2022 and cultivated an image as a gun-owning Alaska Democrat.

But this time around, the NRA has endorsed Sullivan in the 2026 Senate contest, leaving Peltola to explain why her campaign is now sharing a fundraising vehicle with a candidate who has advocated banning one of America’s most commonly owned rifles.

The thing about these joint fundraising committees is that it doesn’t make sense to link candidates with divergent views, because while one might argue it gives them a bigger pool to fish from, the reality is that it will run some donors off because they won’t want to see their money go toward someone who might oppose gun control, for example.

So Peltola’s decision to partner up with Talarico has to raise a lot of questions, and while she’s largely presented herself as a moderate Democrat, we can’t forget that Abigail Spanberger did, too. Sure, there are differences between Peltola and Spanberger, but people change over the years, and it doesn’t take that many years. 

Plus, who’s to say it’s really a change? We can’t see into anyone’s heart, and it’s not like people haven’t lied to get into office before. [As I pointed out a few days ago, Peltola has also dropped any mention of the Second Amendment from her campaign website, and has the endorsement of both Shannon Watts and David Hogg. – Cam]

Look, I don’t know much about Peltola’s politics today, nor do I care all that much. What I know is that she voluntarily got into an arrangement with a controversial, far-left Democrat who stands for gun control in an extreme way, which means she is either a complete idiot and didn’t know who she was setting up shop with, or that she finds his views on both gun control and everything else tolerable.

Neither should be acceptable in a candidate.

Editor’s Note: The radical Left will stop at nothing to enact their radical gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.

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