Establishment Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) announced Friday she will seek reelection in the 2022 midterms against a Donald Trump-endorsed opponent.
Murkowski is one of seven Republican senators who voted to impeach Trump in the aftermath of January 6. She is the only one out of the seven to have announced a reelection bid in 2022.
“My heart is, and always has been, in Alaska, and that’s why I am proud to announce my campaign for reelection to the U.S. Senate in 2022,” Murkowski’s statement read.
Murkowski will first have to defeat Trump-endorsed Kelly Tshibaka in the Republican primary.
Though she has the backing of Sen. Rick Scott’s (R-FL) National Republican Senatorial Committee, the senator will face an outsider happy to highlight Murkowski’s leftist track record.
“She voted to allow illegal immigrants to remain in the country, voted against commonsense federal judges, voted to keep Obamacare, and voted to remove President Trump from office even though his term had already expired,” Tshibaka told Breitbart News in June.
“Because of her record, Murkowski has been censured by the Republican Party of Alaska and instructed not to refer to herself as a Republican in the state any longer.”
After Murkowski voted to impeach Trump, the Alaskan GOP censured her and declared “[t]he party does not want Lisa Murkowski to be a Republican candidate” in the midterms.
Murkowski is the daughter of a former Alaskan senator and governor. She was appointed by her father, Frank Murkowski, to fill his senate vacancy in 2002. In 2010, she narrowly won the Republican primary by running as a write-in.
Follow Wendell Husebø on Twitter @WendellHusebø
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