# Lisa Murkowski U.S. Senator from Alaska since December 2002, originally appointed by her father, then-Governor Frank Murkowski. Won her first full term in 2004, lost the 2010 Republican primary to Tea Party challenger Joe Miller, then **won the 2010 general election as a write-in candidate** — the first U.S. senator to win as a write-in since [[Strom Thurmond]] in 1954. Re-elected 2016, 2022. ## The second impeachment One of seven Republican senators to vote guilty on the article of incitement of insurrection at the [[Trump Second Impeachment]] trial (February 13, 2021). Her statement: "If months of lies, organizing a rally of supporters in an effort to thwart the work of Congress, encouraging a crowd to march on the Capitol, and then taking no meaningful action to stop the violence once it began is not worthy of impeachment, conviction, and disqualification from holding office in the United States, I cannot imagine what is." In the [[Trump First Impeachment]], Murkowski voted not guilty on both articles but joined Romney and Collins in voting (51–49, losing) to allow witness testimony at the trial. ## 2022 re-election Trump endorsed primary challenger Kelly Tshibaka. Under Alaska's then-new top-four open primary and ranked-choice general-election system, Murkowski won the 2022 race despite finishing second in the primary — Tshibaka's general-election ceiling proved too low under ranked-choice. The result reinforced the [[Brad Raffensperger]] data point: Trump's primary endorsement was not unconditional, particularly under non-traditional ballot mechanisms. ## KB significance Murkowski sits in a small subset of post-2021 Republican senators who broke with Trump on conduct grounds and survived re-election: alongside [[Bill Cassidy]] (LA, also voted guilty 2nd impeachment), the Alaska/Maine/Louisiana ballot-access exceptions where Trump's hold on the GOP primary is weakest. Up for re-election in 2028. ## Related - [[Trump Second Impeachment]] - [[Trump Impeachments Timeline]] - [[Susan Collins]] - [[Mitt Romney]]