Kelly Tshibaka, a Trump-endorsed U.S. Senate hopeful in Alaska, told Newsmax on Monday that Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski and people like her “pretend to be fiscal conservatives” but in reality “burden the future generations" with excessive spending.
“Really what it is, is buying votes,” Tshibaka, who is primarying Murkowski for Senate, said during an appearance on “The Chris Salcedo Show.”
The comments from Tshibaka come amid a press release from the Alaska senator last month touting almost $230 million in congressional spending for the state in an unrelated bill, a trade-off process commonly referred to as “earmarking” or “pork spending.”
“I was just out in Kotzebue, which is one of our rural communities that desperately need some infrastructure spending, talking to some ... common-sense Democrats. I asked them what they think about this earmark spending. They will get tens of millions of dollars from what Murkowski just brought home. They said, ‘It’s sure nice to get this money. We wish our senator would have been working for us the last 20 years instead of the last six months [now] that she’s facing a strong challenger.’”
“That’s exactly what we think about earmarks. There’s lots of ways to serve Alaska. It’s not just when you’re facing a challenger, and you need to buy votes.”
According to a Cygnal statewide survey, Tshibaka currently leads the field in Alaska’s new election system that includes a nonpartisan blanket primary in August and a ranked-choice voting system during the general election.
In addition to Murkowski and Tshibaka, 10 other candidates have filed to run in the Alaska Senate race so far. Top Democratic candidate state Sen. Elvi Gray-Jackson officially withdrew from the race last month, boosting Murkowski’s hopes for reelection.
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