Alaska’s Senate race remains too early to call, as Trump-endorsed Kelly Tshibaka battles it out with RINO Lisa Murkowski who voted to impeach Trump after the Jan 6 Capitol protests and voted against confirming Justice Brett Kavanaugh in 2018.
So far, 71% of votes have been counted, and Tshibaka leads the race at 44.4%, while Murkowski has 42.7% of the votes.
Due to Alaska’s new rank-choice voting system, there are two Republican candidates on this year’s ballot running against Democratic candidate Patricia Chesbro.
Chesbro has only received 9.5% of the votes.
In order to win in Alaska’s new voting system, a candidate must gain over 50% of the vote. If no one meets the minimum percentage of votes, the candidate in last place, in this case, Chesbro, will be eliminated from the running. Then, the second-choice votes of Chesbro’s supporters will be tallied to determine the winner.
If this were to happen, it is likely that Chesbro’s supporters will have largely voted for Murkowski as their second choice.
Incumbent Murkowski, who is ranked as the second-most liberal Republican Senator, stands to lose the seat that she’s held for two decades. Murkowski’s supporters have spent millions of dollars on smear campaigns against her opponent.
Jim Lottsfeldt, a political consultant, is one of such supporters. Lottsfeldt helped to run an independent group that contributed millions of dollars to Murkowski’s campaign.
As Murkowski’s numbers fall behind Tshibaka’s, Lottsfeldt said, “I know [the results of the race] are going to turn around – or every cent I spent on polling was a waste.”
The Washington Post reported that RINO Senate Leader Mitch McConnell’s Super PAC Senate Leadership Fund has spent over $5 million in attack ads against Tshibaka.
Despite all the money that has been funneled into Murkowski’s campaign, Tshibaka has still managed to pull ahead.
Addressing her supporters on Tuesday, Tshibaka said, “What we couldn’t do with money, we made up with extra tough power. There are a lot of people in this room who put on some extra tough attitude and some extra tough boots, and knocked on thousands of doors.”
The Trump-backed candidate also thanked her supporters for their prayers, saying, “We said, ‘what would you rather have, Kelly? $20 million or 20 million prayers?’ That one’s easy. You don’t win campaigns with $20 million.”