“Life as a moderate at the highest levels of American politics can be simultaneously frenzied and monotonous,” writes Michael J. Mooney, a writer at Deseret News of Salt Lake City, in an extended political profile of Alaska’s Sen. Lisa Murowski.
Mooney interviewed liberal politicos and pollsters in Alaska to pull together his report, in which he shows that Alaska conservatives think poorly of Murkowski, who is Republican on paper., She survives with the support of Democrats and undeclared voters. One thing that binds her to her Democrat supporters is her hatred of Donald Trump.
Murkowski “regularly collaborates and socializes with colleagues across the political spectrum. But her most obvious defiance of party dogma has been her repeated criticism of Trump. She’s called him ‘spiteful’ and ‘flawed to his core.’ She said she wouldn’t vote for him in 2016 or 2020 and has already said she won’t vote for him in 2024. She was one of only seven Senate Republicans who voted to convict Trump during his 2021 impeachment trial, saying at the time that she’d seen ‘clear evidence that he attempted to overturn the 2020 election after losing it.’ And she’s the only one of those seven who’s faced voters since then,” Mooney writes.
Mooney quotes Alaska’s leading liberal pollster Ivan Moore as saying that among self-described Alaska conservatives, a mere 27% have a positive view of Murkowski, and 69% have a negative view. Among Alaska moderates, 55% have a positive view. Among progressives, the senator has a 72% positive rating, and only 21% see her negatively.
While Republicans typically don’t vote for her, she more than makes up for it with independents and Democrats, Mooney explains of the mystery of why Murkowski has been able to remain in office for 22 years.
“Moore told me she’s almost certainly the only Republican officeholder in the country who’s more popular among progressives than conservatives,” Mooney writes. “I asked Moore if Murkowski would have any chance of winning a Republican primary. ‘No, none,’ he said. ‘It’s categorically zero.'”
And then comes the kicker: Murkowski may switch parties, but not just yet.
Moore is also quoted as saying that Murkowski will not give up being a Republican while her father, former Senator and Governor Frank Murkowski is alive. “As long as Daddy’s still alive, she ain’t switching,” Moore is quoted as saying. “I think Daddy would be very disappointed.” Frank Murkowski is now 91 years old.
Lisa Murkowski would not grant an interview to Mooney for the profile, but he interviewed about 20 other people for his profile, which can be read at this link.