Former President Donald Trump on Saturday vowed to campaign against Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska in 2022 after she voted for a conviction during his impeachment proceedings this year.
In a statement to Politico, Trump said: “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. 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.”
Murkowski, a moderate who has held her seat since 2002, has been one of the ex-president’s harshest critics in the party and was among the seven SenateRepublicans who voted for his conviction in February.
Although Senators Richard Burr of North Carolina, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Susan Collins of Maine, Mitt Romney of Utah, Ben Sasse of Nebraska and Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania also voted against the ex-president, Murkowski is the only one up for reelection next year.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski questions Xavier Becerra, nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), at his confirmation hearing on February 23, 2021 in Washington, DC. Sarah Silbiger/Getty Images
On Saturday, Trump’s team released a recent poll that they commissioned on Murkowski to support their efforts to oust her. Conducted between January 30 and February 1, the McLaughlin and Associates poll found the ex-president’s Alaska favorability rating at 52 percent—nine points higher than Murkowski’s 43 percent.
Murkowski is the 86th most popular Republican in Congress, with 13 percent sharing a positive opinion, 23 percent sharing a negative opinion, and 19 percent sharing a neutral opinion of the senator, according to a December 2020 YouGov poll. She is most popular among millennials and Generation X, and is more popular among men than women.
A publicly funded poll of 1,081 Alaska voters, conducted by Public Policy Polling in June, showed Murkowski with an approval rating of just 29 percent and a disapproval rating of 55 percent. Meanwhile, Trump’s approval rating in the state sat at 46 percent and disapproval rating 49 percent.
In April 2019, a Morning Consult poll showed that she was still popular among Alaska voters despite regularly standing against Trump’s agenda. In the poll, 43 percent of Alaskans had a positive view of her compared to 36 percent that had a negative view.
However in late 2019, Murkowski was voted among the five least popular senators, along with Collins of Maine, who also supported Trump’s conviction and is considered one of his opponents in the party, according to Morning Consult.
Trump won Alaska by 10 points last year, but Murkowski’s political power has proven to be sturdy. Following the former president’s acquittal in his second impeachment trial, Murkowski told Politico that she was “sure that there are many Alaskans that are very dissatisfied with my vote, and I’m sure that there are many Alaskans that are proud of my vote.”
Newsweek reached out to Murkowski’s office for comment.