On March 13, 2021, the Alaska Republican Party censured Sen. Lisa Murkowski, and asked her to not run as a Republican again. The vote of party leaders was 53-17.
“It wasn’t simply one vote she cast or one statement she made, it was a years-long pattern of consistently contradicting Alaska values and the things that Alaskans support. Murkowski has repeatedly sided with her friends in the Washington, D.C. elite against the interests of Alaskans. That’s why a look at the record proves that in the 2022 Alaska Senate race, there are effectively two Democrats: Murkowski and Democratic State Senator Elvi Gray-Jackson. When I’m the next senator from Alaska, there will be no mistaking that I will fight for the interests of the people of Alaska,” Tshibaka said in a statement.
The censure was not only about Murkowski voting to impeach a president who was no longer in office. The resolution listed an inventory of faulty actions by Murkowski, including her support of Deb Haaland as President Joe Biden’s Interior Secretary. The party said at the time that Haaland was a well-known opponent of resource development on public land, something that is essential to the Alaska economy. Alaska Sen. Dan Sullivan also voted to confirm Haaland, but was not censured.
The party also criticized Murkowski for her enduring support of abortion, for voting against repealing Obamacare, for vocal opposition to Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, and for demanding President Trump’s immediate resignation after the Jan. 6 protest inside the U.S. Capitol.
The resolution that passed a year ago also directed the party to find another Republican candidate to run against Murkowski. Two weeks later, Tshibaka announced her candidacy and by July she had the party’s endorsement, 58-17.
Murkowski has held the seat since her father, Frank Murkowski, awarded it to her when he became governor of Alaska in 2002.
She has been a lightning rod for controversy in the party, after losing the primary to Joe Miller in 2010, but then winning reelection as a write-in candidate in November of that year.
In 2016, the Alaska Republican Party leadership had largely made peace with her, but discontent grew with her again after her continued opposition to President Donald Trump. After Joe Biden became president in 2022, many Republicans felt Murkowski had a role in that nationally, by signaling to Republicans that it was better to vote for Biden over Trump. Murkowski has not said who she voted for in 2020, but is on the record saying she did not vote for Trump.
Since Biden took office, Alaska has experienced the Biden Administration’s shutdown of nearly all of its resource industries — timber, mining, oil and gas.
Murkowski does not have strong support across the electorate in Alaska and is not popular with Republicans nationally. She has never won the majority of the vote of all Alaskan voters, unlike Congressman Don Young and Gov. Mike Dunleavy.
Although she has raised more money than Tshibaka, Tshibaka has raised more from Alaskans, while Murkowski’s money is largely from Outside.
