In 2022, Alaska held its first-ever ranked choice voting election. Murkowski barely survived again, having captured 43.4% of the vote compared to fellow Republican Kelly Tshibaka’s 42.6% in the first round. Murkowski was declared the victor after votes from the third-place finisher were redistributed.

In other words, Murkowski isn’t a political juggernaut who will be welcomed by Republican voters in perpetuity. She represents a state where 63% of voters are registered as independents, while just 23.2% are Republicans and 11.7% are Democrats.

The 69-year-old has certainly caught the ire of President Donald Trump, especially pertaining to the SAVE America Act. It was Murkowski who joined Sens. Thom Tillis (R-NC), Mitch McConnell (R-KY), and Susan Collins (R-ME) in voting against the measure.

“Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, you should call her and tell her to get on the ball,” Trump said recently. “She’ll never win another election. I can tell you, she has got to get — she’s got to vote [for it].

“It’s called the SAVE America Act. It’s voter ID. You can look, and you can say, ‘Oh, that person’s OK,’ or for lots of reasons, ‘That person is not the same person.’ We want proof of citizenship, and we want no mail-in ballots, except for illness, disability, and military deployment, or travel.”

Murkowski has heard the criticism over the years during the Trump era and appears to be hedging her bets. Perhaps she sees the writing on the wall and knows that there might not be an appetite for a fifth Murkowski term given how close her previous races have been. She will absolutely be primaried by a pro-MAGA candidate ahead of her race in 2028. Trump won the state by nearly 14 points two years ago, so there’s a very good chance she might not make it to the general election next time around.

But what happens if Murkowski decides to run as an anti-Trump independent instead?

“There is some openness to exploring something different than the status quo,” Murkowski recently said in a podcast interview. “But … the values that I hold are going to be the same values regardless of whether there’s a ‘R’ behind it or an ‘I’ behind it or a ‘[no party]’ behind it.

“Here’s the challenge that you have in the United States Senate: There are two sides of the aisle. You sit on the left side of the aisle with the Democrats, or you sit on the right side of the aisle with the Republicans. And so, when Joe and Kyrsten moved from being Democrats to being independents, they still sat in the same spot. They still sat in the same spot on their committees.”

By “Joe and Kyrsten,” Murkowski is referring to former Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, who ended up being the most vilified members of the Democratic Party by members of their own party during the Biden era. Time and again, the duo voted to shoot down the autopen administration’s biggest priorities, including blowing up the filibuster and passing the massive spending boondoggle known as the Build Back Better plan. They also ensured that voting provisions and rules in elections weren’t stripped from individual states and nationalized to blatantly favor Democratic candidates in the name of saving democracy.

When the bills failed, Manchin and Sinema publicly became the Benedict Arnolds of the blue team, especially from the left wing of the party.

“It should not be a head-scratcher,” socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) railed. “You’ve got two members of the Senate, Sen. Manchin and Sen. Sinema, who have sabotaged what the president has been fighting for.”

“Millions of working people across the country will pay the price for their actions,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) warned.

“Stop acting like the filibuster is anything other than an anti-democratic tool — which is also a pretty good description of Kyrsten Sinema,” now-former late-night “comedian” Stephen Colbert mocked.

Manchin and Sinema eventually opted out of seeking reelection, but only after Trump retook office.

But now, Trump has the same problem in the form of Murkowski and Collins, with retirements coming from Tillis and McConnell. And if polls are correct — and that might be the biggest “if” in human history given their track records lately — the RealClearPolitics averages show Democrats comfortably taking back the House and splitting the Senate 50-50.

In the latter scenario, Vice President JD Vance would serve as the tiebreaker if both parties vote strictly along party lines. But therein lies the rub: The Senate was also split 50-50 during the Biden administration. And while Democrats could usually count on complete and total loyalty, that wasn’t the case thanks to Manchin and Sinema.

Collins and McConnell haven’t hinted at switching parties, but Murkowski is absolutely doing so.

“If Democrats won three seats in the next election and offered you a way to pass bills that benefit Alaskans if you caucused with them, you’d consider it?” she was asked by GD Politics host Galen Druke.

“I’m evading your answer, of course, because it is so extremely hypothetical,” Murkowski responded.

“It is a different way of looking at addressing our problems rather than just saying it’s red and it’s blue,” she added. “There’s some openness to exploring something different than the status quo.”

Not unlike Tillis, who is on a mostly anti-Trump media tour for his How To Win Friends and Antagonize Presidents memoir, Murkowski could quite easily settle into the same role by announcing her retirement in January 2029 and playing the role of spoiler if handed the keys to making every 50-50 Senate vote into a 49-51 loss for Republicans — just as the late Sen. John McCain did in giving an infamous thumbs down to Trump’s attempt to repeal and replace Obamacare in 2017.

TRUMP TARGETS LISA MURKOWSKI OVER SAVE AMERICA ACT IMPASSE

It’s an odd political time we live in when the colors of red and blue mix like this. Minnesota, the bluest of blue states, may elect a Republican senator in Michele Tafoya. Texas may elect an odd liberal in James Talarico.

When looking at it that way, suddenly the prospect of Murkowski leaving Republicans high and dry in a 50-50 Senate isn’t all that implausible.