Sen. Lisa Murkowski has endorsed Democrat Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins in Alaska's governor race, breaking with her own party a week before Election Day and passing over a Republican field that includes a candidate backed by President Donald Trump.
Murkowski, a Republican and one of Trump's more vocal critics in the Senate, announced the endorsement Tuesday in an interview with KTUU, the NBC affiliate in Anchorage.
"JKT is a young Alaskan with a view and a perspective that I think Alaska needs right now — a freshness of energy, a commonsense guy who has a known ability to be working together," Murkowski said.
She said she believes the three Republican gubernatorial candidates on the Alaska ballot are too partisan. The state uses ranked choice voting.
The endorsement was first reported by NBC News, which noted that Murkowski was snubbing GOP contenders including Bernadette Wilson, who has Trump's endorsement in the race to succeed term-limited Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy. Kreiss-Tomkins, a former state lawmaker, is also competing with former Anchorage Mayor Dave Bronson and former state Attorney General Treg Taylor.
Coverage of the endorsement moved quickly. ABC News reported in its midterm elections live updates that Murkowski endorsed "Democratic candidate Jonathon S. Kreiss-Tomkins in the Alaska governor's race, his campaign announced Tuesday."
"GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski endorses Democratic candidate in Alaska governor's race" ran the headline at another outlet, which reported that Murkowski, "who has clashed with Trump at times, said the GOP candidates running for governor are too partisan."
One report on the endorsement carried the headline "GOP Senator Lisa Murkowski Snubs Trump With Stinging Endorsement of Jonathan Kriess-Tomkins in Alaska," with the subhead, "Lisa Murkowski is pushing the president's buttons."
The endorsement landed the same day the campaign of Kreiss-Tomkins welcomed it. Kreiss-Tomkins told KTUU he was grateful for Murkowski's support, according to NBC News.
NBC News reported that its Decision Desk rates the Alaska governor's race as leaning Democratic. Trump won Alaska in 2016, 2020 and 2024, according to the network.
The endorsement also surfaced in national live coverage focused on the closing week of the midterm campaign. In its live updates, ABC News placed the Murkowski endorsement alongside reporting that Trump was heading back to Ohio to rally for GOP candidates and that former President Barack Obama was headed to Georgia, where Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff has been leading Republican challenger Rep. Mike Collins in recent polls and Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms is running a close race against Republican Rick Jackson in the governor's contest.
Murkowski's move drew attention beyond Alaska because of her history with Trump. NBC News described her as "one of President Donald Trump's more vocal critics among Senate Republicans." Another outlet noted she "has clashed with Trump at times."
The reaction spread across social media and news platforms. NBC News posted the story to its audience of 9.3 million followers on X, writing: "Sen. Lisa Murkowski endorses the Democratic candidate for governor in her home state of Alaska, snubbing GOP contenders who include a Trump-backed candidate a week out from Election Day."
The underlying claim — that Murkowski has endorsed Kreiss-Tomkins and is passing over the Republican candidates, including Wilson — is based on the senator's own statements in a television interview and on the Kreiss-Tomkins campaign's announcement, as reported by multiple outlets. Next News Network could not independently verify the endorsement.
Alaska's governor race is one of several contests drawing national scrutiny in the final days before the election. The state's ranked choice voting system means the outcome could hinge on second-choice ballots if no candidate clears a majority.
Murkowski has represented Alaska in the Senate since 2002. She was the only Senate Republican to vote against confirming Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh in 2018 and voted to convict Trump in his second impeachment trial in 2021. She has repeatedly faced primary challenges from the right, including a Trump-backed effort in 2022 that she defeated.
The three Republican candidates in the governor's race have not publicly responded to the endorsement in the coverage reviewed. NBC News reported that Murkowski characterized all three as too partisan without specifying which candidate she was referring to.
The endorsement is the latest in a series of breaks between Murkowski and the Republican Party's Trump-aligned wing. It also sets up a potential test of Murkowski's influence in a state where she has won reelection repeatedly while often drawing the ire of national conservative groups.
Our Take
Lisa Murkowski has spent years positioning herself as the Senate Republican most willing to defy her party's base, and this endorsement is the latest reminder that Alaska's senior senator answers to no one but herself — or so she would like voters to believe. What she actually did this week was hand a gift to a Democratic campaign a week before Election Day while offering a vague explanation that the Republican candidates are "too partisan." That is a convenient charge from a senator whose entire brand is partisanship in reverse — voting with Democrats when it generates national headlines and against her own president when it wins praise from the mainstream press.
Conservatives in Alaska should take note of what this endorsement signals. Murkowski had three Republicans to choose from and chose none of them. She instead backed a former state lawmaker from the Democratic side of the aisle, and she did it through an interview with an NBC affiliate rather than through the normal channels of her own state party. The timing — one week before the election, with ranked choice voting on the ballot — is not an accident. It is a calculated move designed to influence second-choice ballots and to cement her role as the go-to Republican for media outlets looking to show that Republicans are divided.
The bigger story here is not that Murkowski backed a Democrat. It is that the national press will now spend the closing days of this campaign using her endorsement as evidence that Republicans are fleeing their own party.
Alaska voters who want a governor who will work with President Trump's agenda should look elsewhere. Murkowski has made her choice, and it was not the Republican field.
