Alaska GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski, one of seven Republican senators who voted to convict then-President Donald Trump after his 2021 impeachment trial, easily advanced out of an all-party primary Tuesday, along with Trump-backed challenger Kelly Tshibaka.
The state’s new election system had 19 Senate candidates of all parties on one ballot, with the top four advancing to the November ballot, where voters will rank their choices in order of preference. The other two Senate candidates had not yet been called by The Associated Press with an estimated 61 percent counted Wednesday morning, and ballots received over the next two weeks will be counted.
Murkowski, the only GOP impeachment supporter seeking reelection in the Senate this year, was the top vote-getter in early returns. She had 43 percent to 41 percent for Tshibaka, a former commissioner in the Alaska Department of Administration. The AP called those races at 1:41 a.m. Eastern time. No other candidate broke 7 percent, and the other third and fourth winners had not been called early Wedensday.
