The Hill newspaper, which specializes in political reporting from the nation’s capital, has named Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski a “change maker” for 2024, primarily because she bucks her Republican colleagues.
In the profile of Murkowski, the newspaper engaged in truth-stretching, errors of omission, and outright lies. It’s textbook case fake news.
Here’s the most egregious part of the story:
“She is also the highest-profile proponent of ranked-choice voting in the Senate, something she defended in Alaska this fall when dark-money groups poured more than $12 million dollars into a campaign to get rid of it,” The Hill falsely reported.
In fact, the group trying to get rid of ranked-choice voting raised only about $100,000, almost all of it from inside the state in small-dollar amounts.
It was $15 million in Outside dark money that poured into Alaska to preserve ranked-choice voting, which is the voting system, along with jungle primaries, that was designed by Murkowski supporters to keep Murkowski in office. She no longer has to face a Republican primary, but she can still claim to be a Republican when she gets to the Senate. The group used some of that money to produce ad in which Murkowski lauded ranked-choice voting.
Here’s what else The Hill wrote:
“She was also a pivotal vote in some of the biggest battles of President-elect Trump’s first term: voting against a proposal to repeal much of the Affordable Care Act and coming out against Brett Kavanaugh’s controversial nomination to the Supreme Court amid sexual assault allegations.”
The story neglected to mention that Murkowski voted in 2021 to convict Donald Trump in his second impeachment trial — a trial that took place after he was no longer in office.
Now that Sen. Joe Manchin is retiring, “She will be a senator to watch closely as Republicans tussle over the size of Trump’s next tax cut and how much to reduce federal spending to offset its impact on the federal deficit,” The Hill wrote.
“A champion of bipartisanship and pragmatism, Murkowski will be likely involved in any bipartisan deals that emerge in the Senate during Trump’s term,” the newspaper wrote, avoiding mention that she endorsed Democrat Rep. Mary Peltola over a Republican not once, but twice over the course of two elections, and she refused to say who she was voting for for president in 2024, but said she would not vote for Trump.
