Murkowski wins with 54% of the final vote tally

JUNEAU (AP) — Republican U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski has won reelection, defeating Donald Trump-endorsed GOP rival Kelly Tshibaka.

Murkowski beat Tshibaka in the Nov. 8 ranked-choice election. The results were announced Nov. 23, when elections officials tabulated the results after neither candidate won more than 50% of first-choice votes. Murkowski wound up with 54% of the vote after ranked-choice voting, picking up a majority of the votes cast for Democrat Pat Chesbro after she was eliminated.

Tshibaka in a statement posted on her website congratulated Murkowski but took fault with ranked-choice voting. “The new election system has been frustrating to many Alaskans, because it was indisputably designed as an incumbent-protection program, and it clearly worked as intended,” she said.

Murkowski was the only Senate Republican who voted to convict Trump at his impeachment trial last year who was on the ballot this year. Trump was not convicted, but her vote was a sore point for the former president, who vowed to campaign against her.

In 2020, before that year’s election and far before Tshibaka jumped into the Senate race, Trump announced plans to campaign against Murkowski after she criticized him: “Get any candidate ready, good or bad, I don’t care, I’m endorsing. If you have a pulse, I’m with you!”

Trump appeared at a rally in Anchorage in July for Tshibaka. He also participated in a tele-rally for Tshibaka in late October.

Murkowski, who was censured by state Republican party leaders last year for offenses that included her impeachment vote, paid little attention to Trump during a campaign in which she emphasized a willingness to work across party lines and focused on her record and seniority.

Murkowski, a moderate who has been in the Senate since 2002, is the most senior member of Alaska’s congressional delegation following the death in March of Republican Rep. Don Young, who held Alaska’s House seat for 49 years.

Murkowski is no stranger to tough reelection fights. She won a general election write-in campaign in 2010 after losing her party primary that year to a tea party Republican. Coming into this race, she had never won a general election with more than 50% of the vote.