Republican to Challenge Lisa Murkowski for Alaska Senate Seat

A Republican candidate announced her plans Monday to run for the Alaska U.S. Senate seat held since 2002 by Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R).

“Kelly Tshibaka, who has led the Alaska Department of Administration since early 2019, in a statement said she is running ‘for the Alaskans who believe government is of the people, by the people, and for the people. The D.C. insiders need to be held accountable to us,'” the Associated Press (AP) reported.

Tshibaka’s (pictured) campaign website described her as conservative, pro-life, and pro-Second Amendment, with the slogan, “America First. Always.”

“Lisa Murkowski is so out of touch that she even voted to remove Donald Trump from office, even after he was already gone,” she said in a video shared to Facebook:

Murkowski is the only Republican senator who voted in favor of convicting former President Trump who faces reelection in 2022, Breitbart News reported in February.

On March 6, Trump said he will campaign against Murkowski next year.

“I will not be endorsing, under any circumstances, the failed candidate from the great State of Alaska, Lisa Murkowski,” he stated.

“She represents her state badly and her country even worse. I do not know where other people will be next year, but I know where I will be — in Alaska campaigning against a disloyal and very bad Senator,” Trump noted.

The Alaska Republican Party voted recently to censure Murkowski and pledged to support a primary challenger against her, Breitbart News reported.

“There’s a number of issues that the party has had with Sen. Murkowski for the last several years which really culminated in the conviction vote of former President Trump,” Kris Warren, head of the Anchorage Republican Party group, told reporters.

“She’s repeatedly spoken out against President Trump over the years in spite of all the great accomplishments he had that helped the country and certainly helped Alaska,” Warren noted.

In her Facebook video, Tshibaka said the political insiders are going to fight hard to keep Alaskans “where they think we belong, on the outside looking in.”

“But we can pull together as a state and we can show them just how strong we are. We will rebuild our state, and together, we will rise,” she concluded.