‘A master stroke’: Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski projected to lose Senate seat to Trump-backed Kelly Tshibaka

There’s about a 99% chance that a Republican will win Alaska’s senate election this November, and indications are it will go to Trump-backed Kelly C. Tshibaka, ousting Senator Lisa Murkowski from the seat she’s held for two decades.

According to election forecaster FiveThirtyEight, Tshibaka will likely be victorious at 53%, Fox News reports.

Murkowski cemented her “RINO” (Republican In Name Only) label in the minds of many conservatives when she came out in support of impeaching former President Donald Trump.

As Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney discovered, Trump supporters don’t tend to forget things like that, especially when the offending person has been ranked by GovTrack as the second most liberal Republican senator as Murkowski was in 2017. She swung, the analysis revealed, more to the left than Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin.

After voting to convict Trump in the sham that was his second impeachment trial, the Ketchikan native was censured by Alaska’s Republican Party.

She received even more scorn for joining fellow RINOs Sens. Mitt Romney (Utah) and Susan Collins (Maine) in their support of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, considered by many conservatives to be an activist judge who favors light sentences for convicted pedophiles.

“In all my reviews of Supreme Court nominees, I look at their qualifications, independence, lack of bias, integrity, and temperament,” her statement announcing that she would vote to confirm Jackson read. “Judge Jackson met the incredibly high bar I set for service on the highest court of the land.”

And as BizPac Review reported, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell — another extremely unpopular figure among many on the right — had his leadership PAC drop $7 million on advertising to support Murkowski, despite Trump’s endorsement of her opponent.

“It’s important for Lisa to be reelected. She’s one of the few sort of moderates in the middle of the Senate,” McConnell said in April, adding that Murkowski is “a key player in advancing bipartisan legislation.”

And that, of course, is the problem with her. “Bipartisan legislation” is what has put this nation more than $26 trillion in debt and left Americans struggling to make ends meet.

In contrast, Tshibaka stands for the America First policies and values that make liberal heads explode.

On President Trump’s birthday last year, Tshibaka ran her first ad of the race along with the caption, “I’m an America First Conservative. Pro-Life. Pro-2nd Amendment. And I am running for YOU.”

“The insiders don’t like me because I spent my career exposing taxpayer fraud and abuse,” she says. “That’s okay. I’m not running for them. I am running for you.”

In August, she pledged to cut unnecessary spending.

“Future generations of Alaskans should not have to pay the price for reckless spending,” she told Alaskans. “As your next Senator, I will be committed to protecting and restoring Alaskans’ freedom by fighting to cut unnecessary spending.”

And with thanks to President Trump, she vowed “we are going to end @lisamurkowski’s 21-year career once and for all.”

If FiveThirtyEight is right, she may just make good on that promise.

As one user on Twitter said, “This would be a master stroke if [it] comes true.”

Melissa Fine

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