On what makes Mary Peltola and her campaign distinctive

This is from Katrina van den Heuvel's column in the Washington Post, after she notes how rural Alaska is by saying that Democrats' flipping Alaska's at large congressional seat "doubled the amount of land the [party] represent in the lower chamber of Congress":

First, Peltola’s success demonstrates the value of putting a genuine effort into regions where Democrats have historically not invested enough. Although Alaska hadn’t elected a Democrat to the U.S. House since 1972 — and it’s one of the most rural states in the country — Peltola emerged victorious. To be sure, it can be difficult to predict which seemingly long-shot races are worth pursuing — but if Democrats put up a real fight in as many races as possible, they can sometimes find themselves electing a Mary Peltola in Alaska, a Jon Tester in Montana, a Laura Kelly in Kansas. (See also: former Democratic National Committee chair Howard Dean’s 50-state strategy.) That isn’t possible when Democrats allow Republicans to run unopposed, or when they nominate candidates who serve as little more than decoration on the ballot.

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 With little out-of-state money, Peltola focused on connecting with voters about in-state issues — including, most significantly, fish. An Alaska Yup’ik Native, Peltola can point to a lifetime of fishing on the Kuskokwim River and boasts such professional titles as “Salmon Fellow,” so she offered practical expertise about a resource that provides subsistence, sport and sales for her constituents.

Peltola's campaign theme was "Freedom, Family and Fish."  Other posts about Peltola are here.  

Postscript:  Here's part of Peltola's interview with Joy Reid, which was excerpted in some of Liz Ruskin's reporting for Alaska Public Media:

LIZ RUSKIN, BYLINE: Peltola joins a freshman House class that includes brash partisans. She's a different sort. She lowers her voice for media interviews.

MARY PELTOLA: My hope is to take the values of collaboration and peacemaking and those kind of qualities. I hope that I can reflect those.

RUSKIN: As a Yup'ik from rural western Alaska, Peltola says she's been taught to consider community harmony and being part of something larger. She says she's proud of her ethnicities, all of them. She often points out that her dad is a white guy from Nebraska. On the eve of her swearing in, Peltola went on MSNBC and pushed back at a question from host Joy Reid that invoked identity politics.

PELTOLA: You talk about one group having suffered more than another group, and I think that it's important in America that we're not trying to one-up each other on our level of suffering.

RUSKIN: Peltola likes to say that no American is her enemy. Her radical moderation hasn't dampened enthusiasm for her among Alaskans.