Murkowski eyes the exit door
The Cook Political Report rates three Democrat-held Senate seats in the 2024 toss-up category: Arizona, Montana, and Ohio. Republican-held seats rate solid-R or likely-R. Lose any one of its races and Democrats lose control of the Senate. Maybe.
What will Lisa do? (CNN):
Sen. Lisa Murkowski, aghast at Donald Trump’s candidacy and the direction of her party, won’t rule out bolting from the GOP.
The veteran Alaska Republican, one of seven Republicans who voted to convict Trump in his second impeachment trial amid the aftermath of January 6, 2021, is done with the former president and said she “absolutely” would not vote for him.
“I wish that as Republicans, we had … a nominee that I could get behind,” Murkowski told CNN. “I certainly can’t get behind Donald Trump.”
The party’s shift toward Trump has caused Murkowski to consider her future within the GOP. In the interview, she would not say if she would remain a Republican.
Asked if she would become an independent, Murkowski said: “Oh, I think I’m very independent minded.” And she added: “I just regret that our party is seemingly becoming a party of Donald Trump.”
Pressed on if that meant she might become an independent, Murkowski said: “I am navigating my way through some very interesting political times. Let’s just leave it at that.”
Murkowski called for Trump to resign after the Jan. 6 insurrection, telling the Anchorage Daily News, “[I]f the Republican Party has become nothing more than the party of Trump, I sincerely question whether this is the party for me.” Three years later, she’s still a Republican.
But Murkowski will not vote for Trump in the fall, she made clear on Sunday. That proclamation and her impeachment vote make her a MAGA heretic in the first degree. And her Supreme Court confirmation votes against Brett Kavanaugh (2018) and for Ketanji Brown Jackson (2022).
In the 2024 cycle, Murkowski – along with Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine – offered a late endorsement of former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, just days before she dropped out of the race.
Murkowski told The Hill almost a year ago that her party’s populist lurch put it out of step with mainstream America:
“We should be concerned about this as Republicans. I’m having more ‘rational Republicans’ coming up to me and saying, ‘I just don’t know how long I can stay in this party,’” said Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska). “Now our party is becoming known as a group of kind of extremist, populist over-the-top [people] where no one is taking us seriously anymore.
This election season is going to be a wild ride. Keep an eye on Murkowski.
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