Alaska Women's Club Condemns Murkowski Over Hegseth Vote, Disregard of GOP Policies

I've never cared for the term "RINO" (Republican In Name Only.) It's too often used to mean "Any Republican who disagrees with me on any given issue." Incidentally, I have it on good authority that the term "DINO" is used by the other side as well. But there are cases in which the term RINO is perfectly applicable: pols registered as Republicans who routinely ignore or outright oppose the party platform on key issues and who frequently vote against the party's candidates, nominees, and legislative initiatives.

Take Alaska's own "Princess," Lisa Murkowski. Up here in the Great Land, we call her "Princess Lisa" as she was initially awarded her Senate seat like a feudal title when her father, then-Senator Frank Murkowski, was elected governor. She has routinely bucked the GOP, nationally and at the state level, yet she manages to hold on to her seat anyway.

Her actions haven't come without pushback. Following her "No" vote on Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth's nomination (in case you weren't paying attention, he was confirmed and is now SecDef, and will be a good one), an Alaskan women's Republican group has slammed Senator Murkowski for that vote and her general RINO status.

Valley Republican Women of Alaska on Saturday passed a resolution condemning Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski for several offenses, including her public opposition to President Donald Trump and his plan to Make America Great Again, and her failure to support the Alaska Republican Party platform.
The resolution calls out Murkowski for not voting to confirm Pete Hegseth for secretary of the Department of Defense, and her active support for ranked-choice voting, as well as her disregard for the expressed values, priorities, and will of the Alaska Republican Party.

"Valley" in this context, to Alaskans, refers to the Matanuska-Susitna valleys, and the Matanuska-Susitna Borough is one of the most staunchly Republican parts of the state, which went for the Trump/Vance ticket by nearly a two-to-one margin.

In the resolution, the women’s club calls for the immediate sanctioning of Murkowski by the party as a whole. The party will have to take up the request at its Feb. 22 State Central Committee meeting in Juneau.
In addition, the women’s club demands that Murkowski consider changing her party affiliation so the public will be able to distinguish her from the rest of the Republicans.

Lisa's probably not going to change her affiliation, even though she would probably be more widely accepted by Alaska Democrats.

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So, why does she keep winning elections?

Whatever one might think of Lisa Murksowski's political stances and voting record, we underestimate her survival instincts at our peril. She survived being primaried out of her candidacy under Alaska's old closed primary system, but when replaced on the Republican ticket in the 2010 election by (actual) Republican Joe Miller, she ran a write-in campaign - and won. Now we have ranked-choice voting, the campaigns for adoption and against repeal were heavily funded by interests from Outside; and amazingly, that system works to Senator Murkowski's electoral advantage. Even without that, she has cobbled together a coalition of squishy Republicans, native communities, and Juneau and Anchorage liberals who know that red Alaska isn't about to elect a Democrat senator. She's a survivor.

Maybe we'll manage to take her out in her next election. The election of Nick Begich III to the House (since we have only one at-large House seat, the House election is state-wide, like the Senate election) showed Alaskan Republicans how to win under the ranked-choice system - pick one good candidate and get behind him.

Candidly, Princess Lisa Murkowski isn't going to pay much attention to this condemnation. But it's still worth doing - it's campaign fodder for whoever runs against her in 2028.