Lisa Murkowski won’t back Dan Sullivan, and that tells you everything

By SUZANNE DOWNING

In a revealing interview with writer Nat Herz in his Northern Journal newsletter, Sen. Lisa Murkowski once again demonstrated how far she has drifted from the Republican Party whose label she still carries.

When asked directly about the prospect of former Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola running against Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan, something that has been rumored to be in the works for the very near future, Murkowski would not say she supports her Republican colleague. Instead, she emphasized her friendship with Peltola, described herself as “torn,” and declined to commit to backing Sullivan at all.

Torn? That speaks volumes.

Murkowski has already crossed this line before. In 2024, she openly supported Peltola over Republican Nick Begich in Alaska’s congressional race. She acknowledged it plainly in the interview:

“I made it very clear, when Nick Begich was running against Mary (in 2024) — I said, ‘No offense to you, Nick, but Mary has been my longtime friend, and I’m going to support her.’”

So when Herz asked whether she could say now if she’d support Peltola against Sullivan, Murkowski’s response was striking: “No, I can’t say that I would support, no.”

Read that carefully. She did not say she would support Dan Sullivan. She did not say she would support the Republican nominee. She simply said she couldn’t say she’d support Peltola, leaving the door wide open, yet again, to abandoning her party if it suits her personal preferences.

This is a pattern for Murkowski. And it should annoy the hell out of voters by now.

Murkowski did not first win her US. Senate seat through a traditional Republican primary. She was appointed to the seat by her father, Gov. Frank Murkowski. When Republican voters later chose Joe Miller over her in a GOP primary, she ran, and won, as a write-in candidate, due to all the Democrats who wrote her name in. When Alaska Republicans were ready to take her out in the primary process again, Murkowski and her allies backed a radical overhaul of Alaska’s election system: open primaries and ranked-choice voting, designed specifically so she would never again have to face Republican voters head-to-head in a party primary.

That system remains in place today, and not because Alaskans had wanted it, but because it insulated incumbents like Murkowski from party accountability and outside dark money pushed it over the line at the ballot box, barely.

In the Herz interview, Murkowski frames her hesitation as concern for civility and a desire to avoid “nasty” campaigns. But politics is not group therapy. Parties exist for a reason: to organize around shared principles, policy priorities, and voters’ choices. When a senator consistently refuses to support her party’s candidates — while benefiting from its ballot line and infrastructure — that’s not independence. That’s opportunism.

Murkowski even acknowledged the national Democratic pressure Peltola would face, naming Chuck Schumer outright:

“Chuck Schumer would like to be in the majority … he’s going to weigh in and promise, probably, the sun, the moon and the stars to her.”

Yet despite recognizing the stakes, Murkowski still would not stand with her Republican colleague.

Republicans are often told to admire Murkowski’s “independence.” But that so-called independence cuts both ways. If you don’t support your party’s candidates, don’t run under its banner. If you engineer election systems to avoid your party’s voters, don’t pretend you represent them. And if you repeatedly side with Democrats in the most consequential races and in the most important votes, don’t be surprised when Republicans notice.

Lisa Murkowski may still have an “R” next to her name. But interviews like this make one thing clear: she is no longer a team player, and hasn’t been for a long time.

Suzanne Downing is founder and editor of The Alaska Story and a longtime Alaskan.