Moderate Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) said she has “considered” the possibility of switching to the Senate Democratic caucus when asked about it, but she doesn’t see Democrats as being much better than Republicans and has some major policy disagreements with her colleagues on the other side of the aisle.
Murkowski, a pivotal vote on the Republican megabill expected to come to the Senate floor this week, is opening up about her frustrations with the two-party system and acknowledged in a recent podcast that that she may explore the possibility of becoming an independent who aligns with Democrats on major bills.
“I would be not being honest with you if I said I’ve never been asked … ‘Why don’t you switch?’ Or people have said, ‘You should switch,’” Murkowski told Semafor in a recent interview ahead of her new book, “Far from Home: An Alaskan Senator Faces the Extreme Climate of Washington, D.C.”
Murkowksi said she has “considered” switching to the Democratic Party when asked about it but doesn’t appear close to pulling the trigger on such a dramatic move, which could shake up the balance of power on Capitol Hill.
“Have I considered it? Yes, because I’ve been asked the question,” she said.
Murkowski acknowledged she sometimes doesn’t feel comfortable in the Republican Party.
“Do I feel that within my Republican conference, I always feel like I’m right here in my political home? No. There’s some directions and policies that I disagree with,” she told Semafor, but emphasized that her political outlook generally aligns “more closely” with the GOP.
Murkowski also said she sees major problems with the Democratic Party, which has been wracked by infighting since former Vice President Kamala Harris lost all seven battleground states to President Trump in the 2024 election and Democrats lost control of the Senate.
“As challenged as I think we may be on the Republican side, I don’t see Democrats being much better,” she told Galen Druke, host of the “GD Politics” podcast.
“They’ve got not only their own share of problems but, quite honestly, they’ve got some policies that I just inherently disagree with,” she said.
One of Murkowski’s biggest battles with Democrats over the years has been over opening up more of Alaska for oil and gas drilling, something Democrats generally have tried to stifle.
The Alaska Republican scored a major policy win over Democrats in 2017 when Congress passed legislation opening up oil lease sales in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, despite fierce Democratic opposition.
Druke asked Murkowski whether she would be open to becoming an independent who caucuses with Senate Democrats, if her vote would swing control of the Senate to Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Democrats promised to repay her support by passing bills that achieved some of her biggest policy goals for Alaska.
“It’s an interesting hypothetical,” she said, adding that the right hook is “if this would help Alaskans.”
“I have to figure how I can be most effective for the people that I serve,” she said.
Murkowski cautioned that “I can’t be somebody that I’m not,” noting some supporters pressed her to become a Libertarian in 2010 in order to win reelection. Instead, she won the general election as a write-in candidate after losing that year’s Republican primary.
After being pressed by the podcast host repeatedly about caucusing with Democrats as independent, Murkowski opened the door a crack.
Asked if there would be some scenario in which she would become unaligned or independent if it helped Alaska, Murkowski replied, “There may be that possibility.”
She noted the Alaska Legislature is governed by bipartisan coalition.
“This is one of things I think is good and healthy for us,” she said. “We’ve kind of embraced a governing style that says if you’ve got good ideas … it doesn’t make any difference if you’re a Republican or a Democrat, we can govern together for the good of the state.”
Murkowski said any scenario in which she leaves the Republican Party to become the deciding votes on critical bills in order to score big policy victories for her home state would be “supremely hypothetical.”
The biggest drawback for leaving the GOP conference to caucus with Democrats is that Murkowski would likely lose her decades of seniority on the Senate Appropriations Committee and other Senate panels.
She currently chairs the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on the Interior, and the Senate Indian Affairs Committee.
But she also made it clear that she views the hyperpartisan dynamic in Washington as often dysfunctional and counterproductive.
“The construct that we’re working with right now, I don’t think is the best construct,” she said.
She talked about ranked choice voting and other election reforms to meld “different political thoughts” as “a different way of looking at how we are addressing our problems, rather than just saying it’s red and it’s blue.”
“There’s some openness to exploring something different than the status quo,” she said.
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