A recent poll made public Monday reveals that Republican Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski is facing a significant threat from a new Republican challenger.
The new Cygnal poll shows Murkowski trailing Republican Commissioner of Administration Kelly Tshibaka by 15 points in the 2022 all-party Alaska Senate primary. The poll found Murkowski to have just a 33% favorability rating among all Alaskans, compared to 63% unfavorable.
78% of Republicans polled said Murkowski’s vote to convict former President Donald Trump at his second impeachment trial made them less likely to vote for her. Tshibaka had a 61% approval rating among Trump supporters and Republicans.
Trump has not made an endorsement in the race. However, he promised to campaign against her after her vote to convict him: “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.”
Murkowski was the first Republican senator to call for Trump to resign after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. The Cygnal poll indicated Alaska Republicans are also dissatisfied with her vote against confirming Brett Kavanaugh.
Alaska utilizes an open, non-partisan primary system, in which the top 4 candidates advance to the general election. Cygnal found Tshibaka leading the race with 33.6%, Murkowski second with 18.8%, and Democrat Al Gross in third with 17.6%. The general election is conducted with a ranked-choice runoff system, in which voters rank the candidates in order of their preference. The first candidate to reach above 50% support wins.
The Cygnal poll was commissioned by the Tshibaka campaign, although Cygnal has a B+ accuracy rating from FiveThirtyEight. The margin of error is 4.37%.
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