Alaska’s two senators have resigned from leadership posts in their state’s Republican Party after denouncing Donald Trump, according to a new report.
Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan voluntarily stepped down over the weekend as honorary members of their party’s state central committee, The Associated Press said Wednesday.
The AP said it confirmed the pair’s decision Tuesday with Murkowski campaign spokesman Robert Dillon. Party officers are expected to back party candidates.
Murkowski and Sullivan both sharply criticized Trump last weekend following the release of a controversial recording of the billionaire.
“I cannot and will not support Donald Trump for president,” Murkowski tweeted last Saturday, one day after the tape’s emergence. "He has forfeited the right to be our party’s nominee.”
“I will continue to campaign for Republican candidates across Alaska and the country,” Sullivan said in his own statement after the footage’s emergence.
Look I am not going to pretend that this is not a political calculation on the part of these two, especially Sullivan who I don't think makes a move without a Koch brother pulling one of his strings, but having said that this is still a good thing deserving of at least a little praise.
However what is even more interesting about this move on the part of Murkowski and Sullivan is that they surely did a little internal polling to see how this would effect their future in Alaska politics. (Remember Murkowski is running for reelection in 2016.)
The fact that they went forward with this indicates that they felt there was more of a positive to doing so than a negative.
Now I am not saying that Alaska is going to go blue for the first time since 1964 (Oh please, oh please, oh please!), but it most certainly means that Trump's support among Republicans up here is disappearing faster than those SarahPAC donations.
Source http://ift.tt/2doMAvl
