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Lisa Ann Murkowski (
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 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 Sedition 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.
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.
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 (after Strom Thurmond in 1954) 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.
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.
In 2018, Murkowski stated her opposition to the confirmation of Justice Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court of the United States. Nevertheless, she voted "present" on the nomination as a favor to Senator Steve Daines, who supported the nomination but was unavailable to attend the vote because of his daughter's wedding. In 2020, she voted against procedural motions to accelerate Amy Coney Barrett's confirmation to that court, though she later voted to confirm Barrett. On April 7, 2022, she voted to confirm Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court, with only two other Republicans, Collins and Mitt Romney, joining her.
In a March 2019 op-ed for The Washington Post, Murkowski and Joe Manchin wrote that climate change debate in Congress was depicted as "an issue with just two sides—those who support drastic, unattainable measures to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, and those who want to do nothing", and affirmed their support for "adopting reasonable policies that...build on and accelerate current efforts and ensure a robust innovation ecosystem."
During the first impeachment trial of Donald Trump, Murkowski called Trump's actions "shameful and wrong", but said "she cannot vote to convict" Trump and that his personal interests did not take precedence over those of the nation. She joined almost all Senate Republicans in voting to acquit Trump on both articles.
In December 2020, during his lame-duck period, Trump vetoed the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021. The veto left new USCG USCG cutters that were scheduled to be homeported in Alaska without port facilities to maintain them. Murkowski issued a press release that said, in part, "It’s incredible that the President chose to veto the annual National Defense Authorization Act, particularly because his reason for doing so is an issue not related to national defense."
After Trump supporters attacked the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021, Murkowski said Trump should resign for inciting the insurrection. With this, she became the first Senate Republican to say that Trump should leave office before Joe Biden was inaugurated. On February 13, she was one of seven Republican senators to vote to convict Trump in his second impeachment trial. That vote failed for lack of a two-thirds majority. On May 27, along with five other Republicans and all present Democrats, Murkowski voted to establish a bipartisan commission to investigate the Capitol attack. The vote failed for lack of 60 required "yes" votes.
Along with all other Senate and House Republicans, Murkowski voted against the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021. On September 30, 2021, she was among the 15 Senate Republicans to vote with all Democrats and both Independents for a temporary spending bill to avoid a government shutdown. On October 7, Murkowski voted with 10 other Republicans and all members of the Democratic caucus to break the filibuster of raising the debt ceiling, but also voted with all Republicans against the bill to raise the debt ceiling.
On February 5, 2022, Murkowski joined Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson in condemning the Republican National Committee's censure of Representatives Adam Kinzinger and Liz Cheney for supporting and participating in the Select Committee of the U.S. House that was tasked with investigating the January 6 United States Capitol attack.
Murkowski supports the Equal Rights Amendment. In 2022, she and 11 other Senate Republicans voted for the Respect for Marriage Act. As of 2023, Murkowski supports ConocoPhillips's controversial Willow oil drilling project on North Slope Borough, Alaska. In 2024, Murkowski and Senator Sheldon Whitehouse co-authored legislation to ban the commercial farming of octopuses. They cited concerns relating to octopus intelligence and animal rights.
In 2021, when asked whether she would remain a Republican, Murkowski replied, "if the Republican Party has become nothing more than the party of Trump, I sincerely question whether this is the party for me", but added, "I have absolutely no desire to move over to the Democratic side of the aisle. I can't be somebody that I'm not." In 2024, when asked if she intended to remain a Republican, Murkowski replied that she was "independently minded". Asked whether that meant she might drop her party affiliation, she responded: "I am navigating my way through some very interesting political times. Let's just leave it at that." Lisa Murkowski says she's considering quitting Republican Party because of Trump, The Independent, John Bowden, March 25, 2024. Retrieved April 5, 2024. She later added that she was "not attached to a label" and was "more comfortable with that identity ... than with an identity … as a Republican, as a party person", but that she would remain a registered Republican. Murkowski has criticized DOGE, saying she refuses to compromise her integrity by remaining silent. In April 2025, when questioned about the political climate, she said, "We are all afraid", adding, "retaliation is real".
Since Trump regained the presidency in 2025, Murkowski has voted in line with his administration's position in about 85% of major Senate votes. This includes support for most Cabinet and judicial nominees. Murkowski voted for "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" on July 1, 2025, after securing concessions that maintained pork barrel protections for wind and solar projects in Alaska. The Trump administration waived these protections by executive order after the bill was signed into law.
In January 2026, she visited Denmark in support of the country during the Greenland crisis.
| 2022 U.S. Senate general election results in Alaska | |||||
In 2008, Murkowski amended her Senate financial disclosures for 2004 through 2006, adding income of $60,000 per year from the sale of a property in 2003, and more than $40,000 a year from the sale of her "Alaska Pasta Company" in 2005.
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