Blog #3 - Electoral Circumstances

 Blog #3

2016 Election Results

Murkowski had a blowout win in the 2016 GOP primary amassing 71.52% of the total vote. Her three opponents combined for only 28.48%, which is staggering. Bob Lochner came in second with 15.34% of the vote, or 8,480 votes. The primary took place on August 16th, 2016. Shortly after, on October 8, she denounced her parties candidate for president, Donald Trump, on Twitter. She and several other Senators did this after Trump's leaked comments in 2005 about a woman. A month later, she had a convincing 15 point victory in the general election versus Joe Miller and was elected to her third full term. Her first term was an appointed term, which is how she got her seat.

2022 Election Outlook

In 2022, Lisa is seeking to be re-elected to her fourth full term. She is heavy favorite as the incumbent to be re-elected to her seat. There are three other candidates who have declared to run against her in the primaries. Sam Little, Karl Speights, and Kelly Tshibaka. Tshibaka was endorsed by Trump back in November. This is a result of the turmoil and Murkowski's history of being against Trump. 

If Murkowski can get past her three opponents in the primaries, there is currently no declared Democrat running for the seat. This is pretty interesting as I'm sure somebody will step up and run. Even if they don't expect to win, they can still gain publicity and name recognition from being on the ballot.

The current predictions for the Senate race in Alaska are considering the seat Strong Republican. There is no reason to believe that this seat will flip as no Democratic candidate is running and Murkowski is a strong incumbent.

2020 and Campaign Finances

In the 2020 Presidential Election, Donald Trump won by a very convincing ten points. He led Biden by nearly 40,000 votes. This shows that Alaskans Republican values hold a higher authority than the problems between Trump and Murkowski, as they both won convincingly despite the turmoil.

Murkowski's campaign finance details were last reported on December 31, 2021. She has raised $5,909,885. She has only spent $1,737,568 leaving $4,263,435 as cash on hand.