Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski has crossed party lines to endorse Democrat Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins for governor of Alaska, backing the only Democrat on the state's ranked-choice ballot over three Republican rivals just one week before the November 3 midterm elections. The Murkowski endorsement, announced on Tuesday, October 27, 2026, is one of the most striking cross-party moves of the 2026 campaign, and it lands in a race that forecasters already rate as leaning Democratic.
Murkowski, Alaska's senior senator, said the state's future was too important to be decided by partisan loyalty. Her endorsement adds to a growing coalition behind Kreiss-Tomkins, known as JKT, that already includes her father, former Senator and Governor Frank Murkowski, former Democratic Governor Tony Knowles and former independent Governor Bill Walker.
Murkowski announced her decision in an interview with KTUU, the NBC affiliate in Anchorage, and in a statement released by the Kreiss-Tomkins campaign. "Our future is too important to be hamstrung by partisan divisions," she said. "I encourage Alaskans of every political stripe, whether Republicans, independents, or Democrats, to take a close look at Jonathan and Zac. Alaska needs leaders who will put our state first, and I'm proud to support them."
The "Zac" in her statement is Anchorage Assembly member Zac Johnson, an independent who is running as Kreiss-Tomkins' lieutenant governor. Murkowski praised both men, saying: "Jonathan understands that governing requires listening to people with different perspectives and finding common ground to solve the problems all of us face."
Speaking to KTUU, Murkowski went further on why she passed over her own party's candidates. "JKT is a young Alaskan with a view and a perspective that I think Alaska needs right now," she said. "We need a governor who's going to work with the Legislature. That has got to happen for the delegation to be successful back in Washington, D.C."
She said she considered the three Republicans on the ballot too partisan, and expressed concern that Wilson in particular would be unwilling to work with Democrats. The timing matters: the endorsement came exactly one week before Election Day, as early voting was already under way and as polls showed Kreiss-Tomkins leading a divided field.
The Alaska governor's race will decide who succeeds Mike Dunleavy, a Republican who cannot seek another term because of term limits. Alaska uses ranked-choice voting, so voters rank candidates in order of preference. If no candidate wins a majority of first-choice votes, the lowest-placed candidate is eliminated and those ballots are redistributed until someone passes 50 percent. That system rewards candidates who can pick up second-choice support across party lines, which is precisely the coalition Kreiss-Tomkins has been building.
A September poll put Kreiss-Tomkins at 40 percent, ahead of each of his Republican rivals individually, with the Republican vote split three ways. The Cook Political Report rates the race as leaning Democratic, and the NBC News Decision Desk rates it the same way, even though Trump carried Alaska in 2016, 2020 and 2024. Nonpartisan and undeclared voters made up about 63 percent of Alaska's registered voters as of early September, according to the state Division of Elections, a reminder of how many Alaskans vote for the person rather than the party.
Kreiss-Tomkins, a former state representative from Sitka, has made bipartisan cooperation the centrepiece of his campaign, pledging to include Republicans and independents in his cabinet. At a September forum he proposed applying the corporate income tax consistently across major oil producers, taxing online sales and opening a broader discussion about revenue with the Legislature, while protecting a dividend that does not overdraw the Permanent Fund, the state's oil-wealth savings account.
Murkowski's own history explains why the endorsement, while dramatic, is not out of character. In 2010 she lost the Republican primary and then won the general election as a write-in candidate, one of the most remarkable comebacks in modern American politics. In 2022 she won re-election under ranked-choice voting over Republican Kelly Tshibaka. She previously endorsed Democrat Mary Peltola for the U.S. House in 2022 and 2024, and in January she endorsed fellow Republican Senator Dan Sullivan for re-election, a race Peltola is now contesting. Murkowski herself is next up for re-election in 2028.
The endorsement also came with a family dimension. Frank Murkowski, who served in the U.S. Senate before winning the Alaska governorship in 2002 and who appointed his daughter to his Senate seat when he became governor, joined Knowles and Walker in an opinion article in the Anchorage Daily News on Tuesday, stressing that their political differences had not diminished their shared commitment to the state.
The Murkowski endorsement is, at its core, a statement about how Alaska politics now works. In a state where most voters register outside the two major parties, a Republican senator is betting that a Democrat who promises to govern from the centre can win, and that a divided Republican field cannot unite behind a single candidate in time.
It is also a rebuke to the Trump wing of the party in Alaska. Trump endorsed Wilson earlier in October and urged the other Republican candidates to drop out to avoid splitting the vote. Three days before Murkowski's announcement, Trump called her "a disgrace to Alaska and our country." Her answer was to endorse the Democrat the day after, in the full glare of the campaign's final week.
For Kreiss-Tomkins, the endorsement does two things at once. It gives him a validator that no Democrat in Alaska could normally claim: the state's most durable Republican officeholder. And it gives him a second-choice argument to Republican and independent voters who may rank a Republican first but are willing to rank him second, the exact votes that decide ranked-choice races.
For Wilson, Bronson and Taylor, the endorsement sharpens an already difficult problem. Each needs to consolidate the Republican vote, but each is now running against a field in which the state's best-known Republican has told voters to look elsewhere. Bronson, the former mayor of Anchorage, and Taylor, the former state attorney general, have so far drawn less attention than Wilson, the conservative activist and businesswoman Trump backed.
Kreiss-Tomkins welcomed the endorsement warmly. "I have a lot of respect for Lisa, her integrity," he told KTUU. "I think she's worked across the aisle in Congress, which is a quality I really admire and hope to live up to if I'm elected governor. And I'm very grateful that she wanted to step up and be a part of the coalition that we're building."
Wilson dismissed it just as quickly. "Given that Senator Lisa Murkowski abandoned Alaska values a long time ago, I am not surprised that she has endorsed 'Just Keep Taxing' JKT," she said in a statement, using the nickname her campaign applies to Kreiss-Tomkins. Wilson has argued that he supports an income tax and does not support a full Permanent Fund dividend, claims his campaign disputes.
Murkowski herself framed the choice as a question of competence rather than ideology. "Alaska needs a serious conversation about our fiscal future, as well as focus on the cost of energy and growing our economy," she said. "I believe Jonathan is committed to working toward solutions that serve all Alaskans, regardless of party."
The endorsement drew attention well beyond Alaska, because it is rare for a sitting senator to back a candidate from the other party for governor in the final week of a campaign. It also sits alongside a separate Alaska drama: the Justice Department's lawsuit seeking to block certification of a narrow Peltola win in the Senate race, a case Peltola has asked a federal judge to dismiss.
Alaska's governor controls the state's approach to its two defining issues: oil and the Permanent Fund dividend. Oil revenue funds much of state government, and the size of the annual dividend check paid to residents is one of the most politically sensitive decisions in Juneau. A governor who cannot work with the Legislature cannot pass a budget, and a budget fight in Alaska quickly becomes a fight about the dividend itself.
Energy costs are the other pressure point. Murkowski singled out "the cost of energy" in her statement, and it is a daily concern in rural Alaska, where fuel must be flown or shipped in and where heating costs can dwarf those in the Lower 48. Kreiss-Tomkins has argued that the state needs a steadier fiscal plan rather than boom-and-bust budgets tied to oil prices.
Nationally, the race is a test of whether ranked-choice voting changes the incentives of campaigning. Alaska adopted the system after the 2020 election, and Murkowski's own 2022 victory is its best-known product. If a Democrat wins the governorship with Republican endorsements and second-choice votes, it will be cited by supporters of ranked-choice reform in other states as proof that the system rewards coalition-building over base mobilisation.
It is also a test of Trump's endorsement power in a state he has won three times. Trump backed Wilson and asked her rivals to step aside. They did not, and now the state's senior Republican senator has endorsed the Democrat. If Kreiss-Tomkins wins, it will be read as evidence that even in a state Trump carries comfortably, his chosen candidate can lose when the Republican vote is split and the opposition is united.
Alaskans vote on Tuesday, November 3, 2026, alongside the rest of the country's midterm elections. Under ranked-choice voting, first-choice results will be reported on election night, but if no candidate reaches a majority, the tabulation will continue with eliminated candidates' ballots redistributed until a winner emerges. That process can take days, particularly with mail ballots still arriving.
The winner will take office in December and will immediately face the Legislature's next session, where the budget, the dividend and energy policy will dominate. Whoever wins will also inherit the state's long-running fiscal debate: how to pay for government as oil production declines, without draining the Permanent Fund that Alaskans regard as their shared inheritance.
Watch, too, for whether Murkowski's endorsement moves the Senate race. She has endorsed Sullivan, a Republican, for re-election, while Peltola, the Democrat she backed for the House, is challenging him. The two endorsements together paint a picture of a senator who backs individuals over parties, and whose influence in Alaska rests on that independence.
Kreiss-Tomkins, known as JKT, is a Democrat and former Alaska state representative from Sitka. He is running for governor with independent Anchorage Assembly member Zac Johnson as his running mate, on a platform of bipartisan cooperation, fiscal stability and protecting the Permanent Fund dividend.
Three Republicans: Bernadette Wilson, a conservative activist and businesswoman endorsed by President Donald Trump; Dave Bronson, the former mayor of Anchorage; and Treg Taylor, the former Alaska attorney general. They are competing to succeed term-limited Republican Governor Mike Dunleavy.
Murkowski said Alaska needs a governor who will work with the Legislature and put the state first, and that she considered the three Republican candidates too partisan. She has crossed party lines before, endorsing Democrat Mary Peltola for the U.S. House in 2022 and 2024.
Voters rank candidates in order of preference. If no one wins a majority of first-choice votes, the last-placed candidate is eliminated and their ballots are redistributed to voters' next choices, repeating until one candidate passes 50 percent.
Election Day is Tuesday, November 3, 2026. Because of ranked-choice tabulation and mail ballots, a final winner may not be known on election night itself.
Related coverage: Peltola asks judge to toss DOJ certification case in Alaska Senate race, DOJ wants Alaska certification blocked if Sullivan loses, and Dark money floods the 2026 midterms.
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