Murkowski in race for reelection to Senate
JUNEAU, Alaska — Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska announced Friday that she will run for reelection in 2022, setting up a race against a primary challenger endorsed by former President Donald Trump.
Playing up her centrist bona fides, Murkowski said in a campaign video that she would work across party lines to help Alaska and “stand up to any politician or special interest that threatens our way of life.” Trump has vowed revenge against Murkowski and other Republican lawmakers who supported his impeachment over the Jan. 6 insurrection.
“In this election, Lower 48 outsiders are going to try to grab Alaska’s Senate seat for their partisan agendas,” Murkowski said in the video, wearing a pendant necklace featuring an outline of Alaska. “They don’t understand our state and frankly, they couldn’t care less about your future.”
Murkowski, 64, is the only Republican senator who voted to convict Trump at his impeachment trial to face reelection next year. In addition to her impeachment vote, Murkowski called for Trump’s resignation after the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection, in which hundreds of his supporters stormed the building in an attempt to stop the certification of President Joe Biden’s election victory.
Trump has since said people charged in the attack were being “persecuted so unfairly.” The race will be closely watched nationally as an indicator of Trump’s lasting influence with GOP voters after his 2020 election defeat and will show whether Republicans remain willing to punish lawmakers who they believe have been disloyal to the former president.
Murkowski’s announcement came days after she touted the passage of a federal infrastructure package that she called consequential for growing the economy and jobs. She was among 19 Republican senators who joined all the Democrats in backing the $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill.
“Those who are pushing back and saying that a Republican cannot support this measure have not looked at what this legislation is going to do for this country,” she said Wednesday.
Tshibaka, who has sought to cast Murkowski as an “enabler” of Biden’s administration, said Friday that it was “now official that Lisa Murkowski won’t relinquish the Senate seat her father appointed her to 20 years ago, but it’s just as clear that Alaskans are fed up with her.”
“It’s time for new conservative leaders with courage and common sense to lead our nation forward, and I stand ready to step into that responsibility,” Tshibaka said.
In July, the Alaska Republican State Central Committee endorsed Tshibaka, the former commissioner of Alaska’s Department of Administration. Alaska Republican Party Chair Ann Brown said in a statement Friday that Tshibaka “has captured the support of conservatives around the state and is working hard to win.”
Trump won Alaska with 52.8% of the vote last year, while Biden got about 42.8% of the vote. Tshibaka has gotten support from Trump allies and announced plans for a fundraiser with Trump in February at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida.
Alaska voters last year passed an initiative to end party primaries and institute ranked-choice voting for general elections.
Under the system, the top four vote-getters in a primary race, regardless of party affiliation, will advance to the general election. A state court judge earlier this year upheld the new voting process. That decision has been appealed to the Alaska Supreme Court.
A number of candidates have already filed with the state elections office to appear on the ballot, though no Democrat has yet.
Lindsay Kavanaugh, executive director of the Alaska Democratic Party, said Democrats will have a candidate.
“Alaskans deserve better than to choose one side of a proxy war between Mitch McConnell’s candidate and Donald Trump’s candidate. Democrats reject both of those Republican brands,” she said in a statement.