OPINION:
When a 21-year incumbent politician is on the ballot, the election is naturally a referendum on the record of that person. In Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s case, the recent Senate primary show that a solid majority of Alaskans voted for someone else. This is the clearest demonstration yet that our citizens believe that it’s time for a change. With four candidates now left for the general election on Nov. 8, it’s also clear that I am the only viable alternative.
People are understandably used to voting for someone named Murkowski – Lisa Murkowski’s father, Frank, served in the same seat for 20 years before appointing his daughter to fill his unexpired term when he was elected governor. But Alaskans don’t like monarchies, and we can see that Lisa Murkowski has grown more and more liberal over time.
Ms. Murkowski may have started out as a moderate Republican, but she has increasingly moved toward the extreme left of American politics. She has opposed qualified constitutionalist judicial nominees, supported President Joe Biden’s agenda, and voted for Biden cabinet nominees who have declared war on Alaska’s resource industries.
She likes to call herself an “independent voice,” but when she consistently votes against the values of Alaskans, it’s obvious that her views are actually contrary to our own. This isn’t “independence,” it’s being more aligned with Washington, D.C. insiders than anything else.
Ms. Murkowski’s migration leftward has conveniently coincided with Joe Biden’s administration, which is populated by radical environmentalists, many of whom she blessed by voting for their confirmation. While she has supported nearly all of Biden’s cabinet nominees, perhaps the most egregious was her tie-breaking committee vote to advance the nomination of Interior Secretary Deb Haaland for final Senate approval.
Before that vote, Ms. Murkowski expressed concern about Mrs. Haaland’s record as an environmental activist and worried that she would be harmful to Alaska’s interests if she were confirmed as secretary. Yet she broke the tie in Mrs. Haaland’s favor anyway, and Alaska has paid the price ever since. Mr. Biden and Mrs. Haaland have attacked our resource industries relentlessly, costing us thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in investment, and ratcheting Alaska’s fuel prices up among the highest in the nation.
Ms. Murkowski has supported the more radical elements of the Biden agenda, including his gun control bill that attacks our Second Amendment rights. The legislation includes red flag laws, which can be used to restrict the rights of law-abiding citizens, including men and women who serve in our military. This was not an “independent” vote, rather it was a vote with leftist gun control activists. It’s unimaginable that a senator from Alaska would vote for gun control, but that’s what she did.
She has also shown herself to be outside of the mainstream by both supporting and introducing legislation allowing late-term abortions, up to the moment of birth. This is another example of Ms. Murkowski playing to the political elites, as most Alaskans do not believe in abortion on demand with no limitations.
She is also famously proud of having written the so-called infrastructure bill, which contains only a tiny percentage of actual infrastructure funding. As Alaska Sen. Dan Sullivan has said, it’s unlikely that what little money there is in the bill for infrastructure will ever find its way to Alaska because of the regulatory hurdles the Biden administration has placed in the way. This is what we get when Ms. Murkowski negotiates with environmental radicals – a bait and switch that leaves Alaska out in the cold.
Alaskans don’t like shady political tricks and untraceable “dark money” fueling campaigns, but Ms. Murkowski’s record is filled with both. In the video announcing her re-election bid, she warned of people from the “Lower 48” funneling money into our state even though they don’t care about us, she failed to disclose that her own campaign depends almost entirely on dark money. Additionally, a SuperPAC supporting her candidacy is entirely funded by big special interest donors from outside Alaska.
And everyone’s suspicions were confirmed recently when videos released by Project Veritas showed that Ms. Murkowski’s political staffers were behind the creation and promotion of the new ranked-choice voting system in order to get Ms. Murkowski re-elected. They sold the new law as a way to get rid of “dark money” in Alaska politics, but they used dark money groups to convince Alaskans to vote for it.
When I’m the next senator from Alaska, I will be a voice for our people – not the D.C. insiders or the Lower 48 dark money. When an administration threatens our economy or our values, I will fight for Alaska, not meekly cast my vote to ensure my popularity around the Capitol.
In the Senate primary election, Alaska voters signaled that they think it’s time for a change. The general election on November 8th is our chance to make that happen.
• Kelly Tshibaka is a born-and-raised Alaskan, and a candidate for the U.S. Senate in Alaska who is endorsed by former President Donald Trump and the Alaska Republican Party.
