Alaska GOP Turns On Murkowski After Impeachment Vote, Says It Will Recruit a Primary Challenger: Report

Another Republican senator has been formally rebuked for voting to convict former President Donald Trump on the charge of “incitement of insurrection.”

On Saturday, the Alaska Republican Party moved to censure Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) after she voted to convict Trump in last month’s impeachment trial, the Anchorage Daily News reports.

The paper notes that according to party rules, a censure is “an official rebuke and disapproval.”

However, that apparently does not go far enough for the party.

The censure resolution reads that the party “will hereby recruit a Republican Party challenger to oppose and prohibit Senator Murkowski from being a candidate in any Republican primary to the extent legally permissible.”

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 also pointed to Murkowski’s criticism of Trump, “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.”

Murkowski is one of seven Republican senators who voted to convict Trump in February.

Trump was acquitted after as there were not the required 67-votes to convict.

Murkowski is up for reelection in 2022, and Trump has already signaled that he plans to campaign against her, as IJR reported.

“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,” Trump said in a statement.

He added, “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. Her vote to advance radical left Democrat Deb Haaland for Secretary of the Interior is yet another example of Murkowski not standing up for Alaska.”

Despite opposition from her state’s Republican Party and Trump, it may be an uphill climb to unseat Murkowski.

In 2010, she lost her primary to Tea Party favorite Joe Miller. Still continued her bid for reelection, but she ran a write-in campaign that required voters to write her name on the ballot.

Murkowski became the first senator in 50 years to win a write-in campaign, defeating Miller and a Democratic candidate.

She also easily won her 2016 reelection bid.