Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski: 'I Could Not Vote for Trump'

Alaska, as I have pointed out in the past, is represented in Congress by a Democrat, Representative Mary Peltola; a Republican, Senator Dan Sullivan; and Lisa Murkowski. Senator Murkowski is ostensibly a Republican, but she has a long history of being at odds with the mainstream of the GOP.

Now Senator Murkowski is in the news again, this time as the result of a phone interview with NBC News on Saturday in which she stated her support for former U.N. Ambassador and South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley and said that she "could not" vote for former President Donald Trump.

Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski said Saturday she “could not” vote for former President Donald Trump in the 2024 election should he win her party’s nomination again — but that also doesn’t mean she could cross party lines for President Joe Biden, either.
“I could not” vote for Trump, Murkowski said in a phone call with NBC News on Saturday night, adding, “I can’t vote for Biden.”
She urged those like her who want an alternative not to “quit” on former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley’s long-shot GOP bid yet.

To call former Governor Haley's continued candidacy a "long shot" may be the greatest political understatement since the Roman General Pompey Magnus described Julius Caesar's crossing the Rubicon and invading Italy as "a damned nuisance."

Alaska politics can be a bit odd, and Lisa Murkowski's survival in Great Land elections is an example of such; her most recent win, in 2022, has been attributed to the implementation of ranked-choice voting, which, along with coupling her campaign to that of Democrat Representative Mary Peltola, led to her defeating Trump-endorsed Republican Kelly Tshibaka.

Murkowski, who previously admitted that she also didn’t vote for Trump in 2020, voted to convict him on impeachment charges after the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection. Trump, who was acquitted of those charges, then backed a primary challenger who unsuccessfully ran against Murkowski in 2022.

It's a little baffling, however, to see her endorsing the former SC governor at this stage in the game when Haley's defeat is all but certain. It's also baffling to ascertain who Senator Murkowski might support in the general, which is shaping up to be a contest between former President Trump and President Biden, both of whom Senator Murkowski has said she will not support. While Alaska's ranked-choice system, which will be on the ballot for repeal this year, gives her the option to rank her votes for various other candidates, none of them stand a ghost of a chance of election.

It's Official: Repeal of Ranked-Choice Voting Will Appear on Alaska's 2024 Ballot

Senator Murkowski was originally appointed to the U.S. Senate by her father, Alaska politician Frank Murkowski when the elder Murkowski resigned his Senate seat after winning election as Governor. One of his first acts was appointing his daughter to fill his old Senate seat. Lisa Murkowski won the 2004 Senate election but was defeated in the Alaska 2010 primary by the Tea Party-affiliated challenger, Joe Miller. She managed to retain her seat as a write-in candidate. She won again in 2016 and most recently in 2022. She will next stand for election in 2028, another presidential election year, and hopefully after the ranked-choice voting system has gone the way of the dodo.