DEMS/GOP/SENATE/SUPREME COURT/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “Lisa Murkowski is facing fresh political fallout for opposing confirmation of President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, as Republicans fret about her future in the GOP and whether Trump’s attacks on the Alaska senator will alienate her on future votes on his nominees. Her Senate GOP colleagues are defending her, pushing back against Trump’s vow to make her pay a political price for opposing Kavanaugh. But Murkowski could be censured by her state party over her vote, and Republicans are growing uneasy with her standing in today’s GOP. She voted against the Obamacare repeal and the Kavanaugh confirmation, putting her on the wrong side of the president on two critical votes over the past two years. Murkowski isn’t up for reelection until 2022, having won reelection alongside Trump in 2016. But Republicans say the prickly Alaska senator doesn’t take kindly to Trump’s assertion that Murkowski will ‘never recover’ from her ‘no’ vote and that it might alienate the Alaska moderate on critical votes in a narrowly divided Senate.”
–Burgess Everett and Anthony Adragna, “GOP colleagues defend Murkowski after Trump broadside,” Politico, October 9, 2018 7:22 pm