Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski will advance to the November general election, CNN projects, along with the Trump-backed former Alaska Department of Administration commissioner Kelly Tshibaka, following the state’s nonpartisan primary.
Under Alaska’s nonpartisan primary system, the top four finishers, regardless of party, advance to the general election.
Retired educator Patricia Chesbro, who is endorsed by Alaska’s Democratic Party, will also advance to the November contest, CNN projects.
CNN has not yet projected a fourth winner.
Given the new voting procedure, which Alaskans voted on in 2020, Murkowski avoided a partisan primary contest with Tshibaka and was able to survive a first-round showdown.
Former President Donald Trump endorsed Tshibaka last year, pledging to campaign against Murkowski, the only one of the seven GOP senators who voted to convict Trump during his second impeachment trial who is up for reelection this year. The former President traveled to Alaska to hold a rally for Tshibaka in July.
Murkowski’s family has held her Senate seat for more than four decades. Her father, Frank Murkowski, was elected to the Senate in 1980 and appointed his daughter to fill his seat in 2002 when he was elected governor.
More background: Murkowski has held the seat since, winning her most dramatic victory in 2010, when she lost the Republican primary to Joe Miller but then became only the second person ever (after Strom Thurmond in 1954) to win a Senate seat via a write-in campaign. Moderate on issues like abortion, Murkowski has beat back candidates from the right before.
But her criticism of Trump could make her vulnerable to Tshibaka in November. Murkowski did not vote for the former President in 2020 and told The Hill she wrote in someone else who lost. Murkowski was censured by the Alaska Republican Party in a resolution following her vote to impeach Trump.
Tshibaka launched her campaign last year, pitching the election as an outsider versus a powerful, longtime insider.
Before joining Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s administration, Tshibaka worked in the offices of the inspector general for the US Postal Service, Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice. Tshibaka acknowledged she worked in Washington, DC but “fought to expose waste and fraud in government,” seeking to draw a contrast with Murkowski’s extensive experience in the Capitol.
The November election will be held using ranked choice voting.
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