Underestimating Murkowski is a half-baked idea in Alaska

63-pound salmon mounted on a wall in the Hart Senate Office Building is about half the size of the senator who reeled it in from an Alaska river. If the fish underestimated the woman, it was not the first creature to do so. Or the last.

Among the seven Republican senators who voted to convict President Donald Trump in the January 2021 impeachment trial concerning his incitement of the Jan. 6 riot, only Lisa Murkowski is up for reelection this November. So, Alaska’s senior senator has received allocations from Trump’s inexhaustible reserves of resentments. This seems to trouble her minimally.

His unhappiness is a minor inconvenience compared with the rigors of campaigning in a state one- fifth the size of the continental 48 states. Alaska’s westernmost bit, an Aleutian Island, is closer to Tokyo than to the state’s capital, Juneau, which is adjacent to British Columbia. Although two-thirds of Alaskans live in or near Anchorage, many of the other third cannot be reached by roads, so boats and small aircraft must suffice until winter multiplies the transportation options: dog sleds and snow machines.

Furthermore, in 2020, Alaska voters, disregarding the desires of the leaders (and the activist bases) of both parties, changed, by referendum, the state’s voting. Out went party primaries too easily dominated by a fire-breathing few; in came a nonpartisan “jungle” primary with all candidates on the same ballot. The top four finishers advance to ranked-choice voting in November: If a candidate receives a majority of firstplace votes, the winner is known. If not, the candi

date with the fewest firstplace votes is erased, and his or her votes are reallocated according to voters’ rankings, until a candidate acquires a majority. This

is a Madisonian reform, designed to encourage rule by majorities whose political temperatures do not skew far toward fevers.

In 2002, when her father, Frank, left the Senate to become governor, he appointed her to complete the final two years of his term. She has subsequently won three terms. The second, in 2010, she won as a write-in candidate, becoming the only person other than South Carolina’s Democratic former governor, Strom Thurmond, in 1954 to be elected to the Senate by write-in votes. Murkowski, having lost the 2010 Republican primary, was resigned to the end of her political career until some constituents convinced her that Alaskans could do something unconventional.

Trump has endorsed Murkowski’s Republican opponent, Kelly Tshibaka. Tshibaka’s through-thelooking-glass understanding of Washington, where she yearns to work, is that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., “has repeatedly bailed out Joe Biden, giving him gifts of Senate votes,” and that Murkowski — “Biden’s Chief Enabling Officer” — “has stood shoulder to shoulder with [Biden].”

Most Alaskans were born elsewhere, and the state’s libertarian tinge perhaps reflects the fact that many people moved there to get away from somewhere irritating. But the federal government owns about 60% of the state, so federal officeholders with seniority matter, and voters behave accordingly.

In his 40 years in the Senate (1968-2009), Republican Ted Stevens was as unapologetic as he was indefatigable in diverting a river of federal resources to Alaska. Rep. Don Young, now in his 25th term, has been Alaska’s only congressman since 1973. He is the longest-serving Republican in congressional history, and if Republicans control the House in 2023, he will become even mightier for