Kelly Tshibaka, who has former President Donald Trump's endorsement in the Alaska race for the U.S. Senate against incumbent GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski, said on Newsmax on Thursday that her campaign is "pretty confident" in scoring one of the top four spots in the state's primary to move forward to a general election race.
"We don't have a traditional primary system," Tshibaka said on Newsmax's "National Report." "It's an all-party primary, so there could be a couple of Republicans who come through to the final four ballot and a couple of Democrats."
The Alaskan Republican acknowledged she doesn't have the same name recognition as one of the House candidates, a city councilman from the North Pole — Santa Claus — who is running against former Gov. Sarah Palin and 46 others for a spot in the top-4 primary for the U.S. House.
"Similarly, in my race, I think there are 20 candidates, but we're pretty confident who three of those final four will be," Tshibaka said. "It'll be me, my opponent, Lisa Murkowski, and then one of the highly ranked Democrats."
Democrats traditionally make up much of Murkowski's base, but this year they are upset with her "because she's not pro-abortion enough," said Tshibaka.
Further, Murkowski's base is the same people who like President Joe Biden, she said, and with his low rankings, "it's looking good this year, even better that we're going to win this race."
Meanwhile, having Trump's endorsement is "huge" in Alaska, which voted for the former president twice, said Tshibaka.
"He was the best president Alaska's ever had for policy," she said. "He helped us with energy and energy independence. We're a large military state and Trump boosted our military after [Barack] Obama and Biden completely obliterated it."
Trump also helped protect Second Amendment rights and was instrumental in returning federal lands to the state, Tshibaka added.
"We believe that Alaskans should own Alaska and we know what to do with our state and our resources," she said. "The Biden administration has just targeted us for shutdowns. They have shut us down every which way and our workers are hurting like hell."
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Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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