Senator Lisa Murkowski to Run for Re-election in Test for GOP, Trump

(Bloomberg) -- Senator Lisa Murkowski, who backed the second effort to impeach Donald Trump and has publicly quarreled with the former president, announced she will seek re-election next year in solidly Republican Alaska. 

“I’m running for re-election to continue the important work of growing our economy, strengthening our Alaska-based military, and protecting our people and the natural beauty of our state,” Murkowski, 64, said in a Friday video announcing her candidacy and setting up a proxy battle over the direction of the Republican Party.

The native Alaskan, who was appointed to the Senate in 2002 by her father, Frank Murkowski, to fill his seat when he was elected governor, has earned a reputation as of the Senate’s most moderate members. 

She was one of seven GOP senators to vote to convict Trump in his second impeachment trial and was the first senator from her party to call for Trump’s resignation following the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. 

Despite Alaska’s Republican leanings, the 2022 Senate race is likely to be closely watched because of Murkowski’s public feud with Trump, who in June endorsed GOP rival Kelly Tshibaka. 

Murkowski on Friday emphasized her deep roots in Alaska and warned of outside interests trying to influence the race.

“In this election, lower 48 outsiders are going to try to grab Alaska’s Senate seat for their partisan agendas,” she said. “They don’t understand our state, and frankly, they couldn’t care less about your future.”

She touted her “independent-minded” credentials and pledged to “work with anyone, from either party, to advance Alaska’s priorities.”

Murkowski, who was defeated in a GOP primary in 2010 only to win re-election as a write-in candidate, didn’t mention in her opening video that she’s a Republican, and instead emphasized her ability to work with both parties and deliver for her state through her seat on the Senate Appropriations Committee.

In 2016 she also relied heavily on Democratic and independent votes to win another term.

Election Laws

Alaska, meanwhile, has changed its election laws so there will be one open primary, with the top four vote-getters advancing to the general election. There will also be ranked-choice voting in the general election. Both changes could help Murkowski, who was repeatedly shown an ability to win over an unusual cross-section of Republican, Democratic and independent voters.

In addition to her vote to convict Trump, Murkowski confounded the former president as one of three GOP senators to block his effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act in 2017. She later joined Republicans to pass Trump’s signature tax law, which eliminated the ACA’s individual mandate tax, and, notably for Alaska, authorized oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. 

Murkowski has clashed with President Joe Biden’s administration over a suspension of leases in ANWR, but she was also part of a key bipartisan group that negotiated his $550 billion infrastructure package.

Her support for abortion rights — rare among Republicans in Congress — has also been an issue in past campaigns. She voted to confirm two of Trump’s three Supreme Court picks — Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett — while opposing Brett Kavanaugh.

She voted “present” on Kavanaugh’s confirmation to pair with Republican Senator Steve Daines, who missed the vote for his daughter’s wedding.

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