Lisa Murkowski
Lisa Ann Murkowski is an American attorney and politician serving as the senior United States senator from the state of Alaska, having held the seat since 2002. She is the first woman to represent Alaska in the U.S. Congress and is the Senate's second-most senior Republican woman. Murkowski became dean of Alaska's congressional delegation upon Representative Don Young's death.
Murkowski is the daughter of former U.S. senator and governor of Alaska Frank Murkowski. She was appointed to the Senate by her father, who resigned his seat in 2002 to become Alaska's governor. Murkowski became the first Alaskan-born member of Congress and completed her father's unexpired Senate term, which ended in January 2005. Before her appointment to the Senate, she had been a member of the Alaska House of Representatives since 1999. Murkowski ran for and won a full term in 2004 with 48% of the vote. After losing the 2010 Republican primary to Tea Party candidate Joe Miller, she ran as a write-in candidate and defeated both Miller and Democrat Scott McAdams in the general election. Murkowski was reelected in 2016 and again in 2022. She was vice chair of the Senate Republican Conference from 2009 to 2010 and chair of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee from 2015 to 2021. She served as vice chair of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee from 2021 to 2025 and has served as chair of the committee since January 2025.
Murkowski is often described as one of the Senate's most moderate Republicans and a swing vote. According to CQ Roll Call, she voted with President Barack Obama's position 72.3% of the time in 2013; she was one of only two Republicans to vote with Obama over 70% of the time. She opposed Brett Kavanaugh's Supreme Court nomination in 2018 and supported Ketanji Brown Jackson's Supreme Court nomination in 2022. In 2021, she was one of seven Republican senators to vote to convict Donald Trump of incitement of insurrection in his second impeachment trial; the Alaska Republican Party censured her for that vote. Murkowski was a pivotal Republican vote for the first Trump administration's Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and the second Trump administration's One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
Early life, education, and early career
Murkowski was born in Ketchikan in the Territory of Alaska, the daughter of Nancy Rena and Frank Murkowski. Her paternal great-grandfather was of Polish descent, and her mother's ancestry is Irish and French Canadian. As a child, she and her family moved around the state with her father's job as a banker. After high school, Murkowski interned under Senator Ted Stevens in a Washington summer internship program. Murkowski would attend Willamette University for her freshman and sophomore year before transferring to Georgetown University for her remaining years. She earned a B.A. degree in economics from Georgetown University in 1980, the same year her father was elected to the U.S. Senate. She is a member of Pi Beta Phi sorority and represented Alaska as the 1980 Cherry Blossom Princess. She received her J.D. degree in 1985 from Willamette University College of Law. Murkowski subsequently failed the bar exam four times in a row, passing on her fifth attempt.Murkowski worked as an attorney in the Anchorage District Court Clerk's office from 1987 to 1989. From 1989 to 1998, she was an attorney in private practice in Anchorage. She served on the Mayor's Task Force for the Homeless from 1990 to 1991.
Alaska House of Representatives
In 1998, Murkowski was elected to the Alaska House of Representatives. Her District 18 included northeast Anchorage, Fort Richardson and Elmendorf Air Force Base, and suburban parts of Eagle River-Chugiak. In 1999, she introduced legislation establishing a Joint Armed Services Committee. She was reelected in 2000 and, after her district boundaries changed, in 2002. That year she had a conservative primary opponent, Nancy Dahlstrom, who challenged her because Murkowski supported abortion rights and rejected conservative economics. Murkowski won by 56 votes. She was named as House Majority Leader for the 2003–04 legislative session. She resigned her House seat before taking office, due to her appointment by her father to the seat he had vacated in the U.S. Senate, upon his stepping down to assume the Alaska governorship. Murkowski sat on the Alaska Commission on Post Secondary Education and chaired both the Labor and Commerce and the Military and Veterans Affairs Committees. After she resigned to join the U.S. Senate, her father appointed Dahlstrom, the choice of the district's Republican committee, as her replacement.U.S. Senate
Appointment
In December 2002, Murkowski—while a member of the state House—was appointed by her father, Governor Frank Murkowski, to fill his own U.S. Senate seat made vacant when he resigned from the Senate after being elected governor. The appointment, which many Alaska voters saw as a product of nepotism, caused considerable controversy. Her appointment eventually resulted in a referendum that stripped the governor of the power to directly appoint replacement senators. Along with others eligible to be considered, future Alaska governor Sarah Palin interviewed for the seat. Murkowski was sworn in on January 7, 2003.Elections
Murkowski has had several close challenges but has never lost a general election. She has won four full terms to the Senate; she won 48.6% of the vote in 2004, 39.5% in 2010, 44.4% in 2016 and 53.7% in 2022.2004
Murkowski ran for a full Senate term against former Governor Tony Knowles in the 2004 election after winning a primary challenge by a large margin. She was considered vulnerable due to the controversy over her appointment, and polling showed the race was very close. The centrist Republican Main Street Partnership, which wanted to run TV ads for Murkowski, was told no airtime was left to buy. Near the end of the campaign, senior U.S. Senator Ted Stevens appeared in TV ads for Murkowski and claimed that if a Democrat replaced Murkowski, Alaska would likely receive fewer federal dollars. Murkowski defeated Knowles by 9,349 votes.2010
Murkowski faced a challenge from Joe Miller, a former U.S. magistrate judge supported by former Governor Sarah Palin, in the August 24, 2010, Republican Party primary election. The initial results showed Murkowski trailing Miller, 51–49%, with absentee ballots yet to be tallied. After the first round of absentee ballots was counted on August 31, Murkowski conceded, saying that she did not believe that Miller's lead could be overcome in the next round of absentee vote counting. Miller received 55,878 votes to Murkowski's 53,872.After the primary, the Murkowski campaign floated the idea of her running as a Libertarian in the general election. On August 29, 2010, the state Libertarian Party executive board voted not to consider Murkowski as its Senate nominee.
On September 17, 2010, Murkowski said she would mount a write-in campaign for the Senate seat. Her campaign was aided in large part by substantial funding from state teachers' and firefighters' unions, Native corporations, and PACs.
On November 17, 2010, the Associated Press reported that Murkowski had become only the second Senate candidate to win a write-in campaign. She emerged victorious after a two-week count of write-in ballots showed that she had overtaken Miller. Miller did not concede. U.S. Federal District Judge Ralph Beistline granted an injunction to stop the certification of the election due to "serious" legal issues and irregularities Miller raised about the hand count of absentee ballots. On December 10, 2010, an Alaskan judge dismissed Miller's case, clearing the way for Murkowski's certification, but on December 13, Miller appealed the decision to the Alaska Supreme Court. The state Supreme Court rejected Miller's appeal on December 22. On December 28, Beistline dismissed Miller's lawsuit. Governor Sean Parnell certified Murkowski as the winner on December 30.
2016
After securing the Republican Party nomination by a wide margin, Murkowski was again reelected to the Senate in 2016. Joe Miller, this time the Libertarian Party nominee, was again the runner-up. The election was unusual in featuring a Libertarian Party nominee who endorsed the Republican presidential nominee, Donald Trump, running against a Republican incumbent who did not. The Libertarian vice-presidential nominee, former Governor of Massachusetts Bill Weld, endorsed Murkowski, citing Miller's support for Trump and "devoted social conservative" views as incompatible with libertarianism.2022
In 2017, Murkowski filed to run for a fourth term in 2022. Due to her opposition to some of his initiatives, former President Donald Trump pledged in June 2020 to support a Republican challenger to Murkowski, saying: "Get any candidate ready, good or bad, I don't care. I'm endorsing. If you have a pulse, I'm with you!" She was one of seven Republican senators who voted to convict Trump in his second impeachment trial in February 2021, and was the only one up for reelection in 2022. After her vote, Alaska's GOP censured Murkowski and demanded her resignation. Despite Trump's pledge, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell signaled Republican senators' commitment to back Murkowski's 2022 campaign. During her 2022 campaign, Murkowski was supported by Democratic colleagues, including Jeanne Shaheen, and Independent Senator Angus King.On June 18, 2021, Trump endorsed former Alaska Department of Administration commissioner Kelly Tshibaka for the Senate in 2022, calling her "MAGA all the way". Murkowski later called Tshibaka "apparently... someone with a pulse", referencing Trump's previous statement. On July 10, 2021, the Alaska Republican Party endorsed Tshibaka. Murkowski won reelection by beating Tshibaka in both the first and final round of ranked-choice voting. She received 53.7% of the vote after the ranked-choice tabulation.