A recent poll made public Monday reveals that Republican Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski is facing a significant threat from a new Republican challenger.
The new Cygnal poll shows Murkowski trailing Republican Commissioner of Administration Kelly Tshibaka by 15 points in the 2022 all-party Alaska Senate primary. The poll found Murkowski to have just a 33% favorability rating among all Alaskans, compared to 63% unfavorable.
The Cygnal poll was commissioned by the Tshibaka campaign, although Cygnal has a B+ accuracy rating from FiveThirtyEight. The margin of error is 4.37%.
78% of Republicans polled said Murkowski’s vote to convict former President Donald Trump at his second impeachment trial made them less likely to vote for her. Tshibaka had a 61% approval rating among Trump supporters and Republicans. (RELATED: Sen. John Barrasso Breaks With Trump, Endorses Sen. Lisa Murkowski And Rep. Liz Cheney For Reelection)
Trump has not made an endorsement in the race. However, he promised to campaign against her after her vote to convict him: “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.”
B) Tshibaka: I would love to get President Trump’s endorsement. Alaska voted for him twice to be their president and for good reason. He opened up ANWAR for drilling and pushing back 6 decades of federal restrictions.
— Chad Pergram (@ChadPergram) March 30, 2021
Murkowski was the first Republican senator to call for Trump to resign after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. The Cygnal poll indicated Alaska Republicans are also dissatisfied with her vote against confirming Brett Kavanaugh.
Alaska utilizes an open, non-partisan primary system, in which the top 4 candidates advance to the general election. Cygnal found Tshibaka leading the race with 33.6%, Murkowski second with 18.8%, and Democrat Al Gross in third with 17.6%. The general election is conducted with a ranked-choice runoff system, in which voters rank the candidates in order of their preference. The first candidate to reach above 50% support wins.