One of the most swampy Republican senators is in hot water after voting to charge Donald Trump in his second impeachment trial, which ended in his acquittal.
Alaska GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski has not committed to running for a fourth full term.
When asked on Tuesday evening when she will announce her decision, Murkowski deflected and said she will make her final decision “when I make it.”
“I have been doing everything that a good incumbent does in terms of preserving my options, visiting with Alaskans, spending a lot of time, as much time on the ground as I can, and raising money,” Murkowski said.
Last month, Republican Alaskan Kelly Tshibaka announced she will be challenging Senator Lisa Murkowski in the 2022 Senate primary after Murkowski was censured by the Republican Party for voting in favor of impeaching Trump last year.
Now, a new poll reveals that Murkowski is losing to Tshibaka by double digits.
A poll conducted by Cygnal found that Tshibaka has a 15 point lead on Murkowski, with 33.6 points compared to the senator’s 18.8 percent.
Democrat Al Gross polls at 17.6 percent and Alaska Independence Party John Howe polls at 5.7 percent, and an additional 21.1 percent of voters are undecided at this time.
Murkowski’s popularity has plummeted since she voted to impeach Trump, with only 10 percent of Republicans have a favorable view of her.
A whopping 87 percent of Republicans said they had an unfavorable view of her.
Meanwhile, 61 percent of Trump voters approve of Tshibaka, 61 percent of Republicans approve of her, and 59 percent of conservatives view her in a positive light.
“Lisa Murkowski is in a weak position as an incumbent could possibly find themselves in. A strong Republican candidate is poised to defeat Murkowski. Kelly Tshibaka is that candidate,” Brock McCleary, the vice president of Cygnal, wrote of this poll.
The Alaska Republican Party voted to censure Murkowski and will recruit a challenger to run against her in next year’s election.
The Republican State Central Committee voted in favor of the censure during a meeting in Anchorage after district-level officials passed a series of similar resolutions.
Kris Warren, the author of the resolution said in a statement, “We’re looking for somebody else to be our U.S. Senator in 2022, and somebody who will be more in line with the Republican philosophy.”
He added, “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.”
Warren slammed Murkowski for her criticism of Trump, saying: “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 said he submitted the resolution “right after the impeachment vote in the Senate.”
“The party has been upset with Sen. Murkowski for quite some time,” he said. “And we’ve actually considered a similar resolution in the past. But I think what’s happened here in the last few months is kind of the last straw. We felt that we had to make a strong statement.”
When Trump spoke at the Conservative Political Action Conference recently, he announced that he would be campaigning against Murkowski in the 2022 Alaska GOP primary.
“I will not be endorsing, under any circumstances, the failed candidate from the great State of Alaska, Lisa Murkowski. 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,” he said.