Mary Peltola is a Democrat who as a child campaigned with her father and his friend, the state's longtime Republican congressman. Later, she helped reelect a Republican senator. And she's friendly with Sarah Palin — the former governor who popularized the combative, anti-establishment politics that propelled Donald Trump to the White House.

Peltola scored a stunning upset Wednesday, winning a special election for Alaska's lone U.S. House seat by defeating Palin and Nick Begich III. When she was sworn in, Peltola made history as the state's first woman in the House, the first Alaska Native — she is Yup'ik — and the first Democrat to hold the seat in a half-century.

The win came on her 49th birthday. Born in 1973 — the very year Don Young was first elected to the House — Peltola was raised in rural Alaska. Her father and Young were close, and she would tag along when her father campaigned for Young.

After a decade in the state legislature, she left office in 2009 and has led the Kuskokwim River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission since 2017. The last time she saw Don Young, she brought him dry fish at his Washington office. "I told him I have often thought about running for his seat," she recalled. They both laughed.