- The Alaska GOP has rebuked Minority Leader Mitch McConnell for supporting Sen. Lisa Murkowski.
- Donald Trump and state officials want Murkowski gone for supporting his second impeachment.
Alaska Republican Party officials want Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell to stay out of the state's politically charged Senate race, symbolically censuring the Kentucky lawmaker for pouring millions into attack ads against Trump-backed candidate Kelly Tshibaka.
The purely performative punishment was triggered, The Washington Post reports, by a McConnell-aligned super PAC spending $5 million to run ads supporting incumbent Sen. Lisa Murkowski's reelection bid.
McConnell's advertising blitz bucks the embattled former president's efforts to derail Murkowski's career because she voted in favor of his second impeachment trial.
"The Alaska Republican Party has just told him to butt out of our state," Tshibaka, who got the Alaska GOP's endorsement in July 2021, told the Post. She added that "the millions of dollars Mitch McConnell is spending on lies about me" could be put to better use elsewhere.
State officials censured Murkowski in March 2021 after she broke ranks to try and hold Trump accountable for the January 6 siege at the US Capitol. Many of the Senate Republicans who crossed party lines in the second impeachment trial wound up being reprimanded by MAGA loyalists back home.
Murkowski recently endorsed newly minted Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola in her race against comeback-seeking former Alaska governor and 2008 GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin.
Peltola, who also has the support of key staffers for late Alaska Rep. Don Young, beat Palin by 2 points in August's special election. Peltola is seeking a full term this November.