<\/a>Then-Alaska Department of Administration Commissioner Kelly Tshibaka addresses reporters in Anchorage, Alaska. The leaders of Alaska’s Republican Party endorsed Tshibaka in the 2022 race for the U.S. Senate seat held by incumbent Republican U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski. Murkowski hasn’t officially announced her re-election plans but her campaign released fundraising details, Wednesday, July 14, 2021, that an advisor says “strongly positions,” a re-election bid by Murkowski. The campaign statement comes ahead of a filing deadline and days after Republican party leaders in Alaska endorsed Tshibaka. (AP Photo \/ Mark Thiessen)<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
Tshibaka, in a statement after the vote by party leaders, said she was “grateful and thrilled” to have the support.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
“I have pledged that I will be true to our shared, conservative Alaska ideals and be a senator upon whom they can depend to make every decision based on what is best for our great state,” she said.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
Murkowski said she has “and will continue to fight for Alaskan values in the U.S. Senate. Alaskan voters will decide who represents them in DC and I work every day to earn their support.”<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
When asked about a copy of Tshibaka’s fundraising summary, Tim Murtaugh, who is working on Tshibaka’s campaign, said the filing deadline is Thursday.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
Tshibaka has highlighted on her campaign site interviews on conservative national networks and recently announced an endorsement from Trump.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
Murkowski was one of seven Republican senators who voted to convict Trump during a Senate impeachment trial earlier this year. Trump was acquitted of a charge of incitement of insurrection related to the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol riot.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
Murkowski was appointed to the U.S. Senate in late 2002 by her father, then-Gov. Frank Murkowski, a fact that still rankles some residents. She was elected to her first six-year term in 2004.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
Murkowski lost her 2010 Republican primary to tea party favorite Joe Miller but won the general election with a write-in campaign. In a crowded 2016 general election field that included Miller running as a Libertarian, Murkowski won with 44% of the vote.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
Alaska voters last year approved sweeping changes to the state’s election process that would end party primaries and implement ranked-choice voting in general elections. Under the new system, the top four vote getters in the primary, regardless of party, advance to the general election.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
The system is set to take effect for next year’s races. It’s currently being challenged in court.<\/p>\n\t\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Adviser: Fundraising “strongly positions” the Alaska Republican for a reelection bid. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":106,"featured_media":72786,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":9,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,4],"tags":[648,230],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-72785","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-home","category-news","tag-national-news","tag-state-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72785","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/106"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72785"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72785\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72786"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72785"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72785"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72785"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=72785"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}