Sen. Lisa Murkowski, aghast at Donald Trumpâs candidacy and the direction of her party, wonât rule out bolting from the GOP.
The veteran Alaska Republican, one of seven Republicans who voted to convict Trump in his second impeachment trial amid the aftermath of January 6, 2021, is done with the former president and said she âabsolutelyâ would not vote for him.
âI wish that as Republicans, we had ⌠a nominee that I could get behind,â Murkowski told CNN. âI certainly canât get behind Donald Trump.â
The partyâs shift toward Trump has caused Murkowski to consider her future within the GOP. In the interview, she would not say if she would remain a Republican.
Asked if she would become an independent, Murkowski said: âOh, I think Iâm very independent minded.â And she added: âI just regret that our party is seemingly becoming a party of Donald Trump.â
Given enough time, our first past the post system will always lead to two large coalition parties shaking out of the variety of movements/ideologies weâve got going on at any point. It just makes too much strategic sense for groups B and C who donât want group A getting power but donât agree on anything else to team up to try to get the plurality in a single round of voting that counts as a win under our system.
What I think we need is a) some political upheaval resulting from one of the two parties collapsing, b) a focused and determined effort during that time of upheaval to change our vote counting systems to something less dumb (e.g. insrant run off ranked choice voting is probably the simplest but still effective model).