2022 United States Senate election in Alaska

The 2022 United States Senate election in Alaska was held on November 8, 2022. Incumbent senator Lisa Murkowski won reelection^[1] to a fourth full term, defeating fellow Republican Kelly Tshibaka and Democrat Patricia Chesbro.

2022 United States Senate election in Alaska

← 2016 November 8, 2022 2028 →

Candidate Lisa Murkowski Kelly Tshibaka Pat Chesbro Party Republican Republican Democratic First round 113,495 43.37% 111,480 42.60% 27,145 10.37% Final round 136,330 53.70% 117,534 46.30% Eliminated

First round results by State House district Maximum round results by State House district Maximum round results by borough and census area Murkowski:      50–60%      60–70%      70–80%      80–90% Tshibaka:      50–60%      60–70%      70–80%

U.S. senator before election Lisa Murkowski Republican Elected U.S. senator Lisa Murkowski Republican

After the voter approval of Ballot Measure 2 during the 2020 Alaska elections, this was the first U.S. Senate election in Alaska to be held under a new election process. All candidates ran in a nonpartisan blanket top-four primary on August 16, 2022,^[2] and the top four candidates advanced to the general election, where voters will utilize ranked-choice voting.^[3]

Murkowski was appointed to the Senate in 2002 by her father, Frank Murkowski, who served as a U.S. senator from Alaska from 1981 until he was elected governor of Alaska. Murkowski has won three Senate elections since then, including a notable write-in campaign in the 2010 election, although she has never won an election with an outright majority of the vote.^[4][5][6]

Murkowski was the only Republican senator running for reelection in 2022 who voted to convict former president Donald Trump in his second impeachment trial in 2021. On March 16, 2021, the Alaska Republican Party voted to censure Murkowski and announced that it would recruit a Republican challenger in the 2022 election cycle.^[7][8] Following Murkowski's opposition to some of Trump's initiatives and her vote to convict him, Trump endorsed Tshibaka and campaigned against Murkowski.^[9][10] The Alaska Republican Party endorsed Tshibaka; Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell and the National Republican Senatorial Committee supported Murkowski.^[11]

In addition to Murkowski and Tshibaka, Democrat Pat Chesbro and Republican Buzz Kelley also advanced to the general election. On September 13, Kelley suspended his campaign and endorsed Tshibaka but remained on the ballot.^[12] Murkowski received a plurality of first-place votes, but because no candidate received a majority of the votes in the first round, the instant runoff was triggered. Murkowski won reelection in the third and final round, winning most of the second-choice votes from Chesbro's voters.^[13] Since Murkowski won her three previous elections to the U.S. Senate (2004, 2010, and 2016) without a majority of the vote, this election became the fourth election in which she did not receive a majority of the vote in the first round (the other three elections did not employ ranked choice voting with multiple rounds). Murkowski thus holds the record for the most number of elections won by a U.S. Senator without winning a majority of the votes.