Good news for Republicans, right? Right? It depends on which Republicans we ask. Lisa Murkowski officially launched her bid for 2022 this morning in a campaign video, warning Alaskans that “lower-48 outsiders are going to try to grab Alaskan’s Senate seat.”

Gee, whoever could she mean?

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, announced Friday that she’s running for re-election next year, setting up a fight with former President Donald Trump who endorsed another Republican running in the GOP primary.

“I’m running for reelection to continue the important work of growing our economy, strengthening our Alaska base military and protecting our people and the natural beauty of our state,” Murkowski said in a campaign video.

“In this election, lower 48 outsiders are going to try to grab Alaska’s Senate seat for their partisan agendas,” she continues. “They don’t understand our state and frankly, they couldn’t care less about your future. My commitment to Alaska is the same one I made during my first campaign. I will work with anyone from either party to advance Alaska’s priorities.”

In June, Trump endorsed another Republican for the Senate seat, Kelly Tshibaka, a few months after Murkowski voted to convict him because of his role in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. Murkowski has often bucked her party, voting with Democrats on major issues such as on their effort to block the GOP’s attempts to repeal Obamacare.

If nothing else, this will set up a test of Trump’s ability to move the needle in elections without his name on the ballot, and after losing his own election last year. Trump claimed credit for Glenn Youngkin’s win in Virginia, but Trump didn’t have much involvement in the race at all. Youngkin won the primary by defeating Trumpier challengers and held Trump mostly at arms’ length. Still, Trump let it be known in the general election that he supported Youngkin, and Youngkin took care not to explicitly cross the MAGA wing of the Republican base.

The Senate fight in Alaska will be a full-on confrontation between the two factions, one that might end up opening an opportunity for Democrats. Trump’s endorsement of Tshibaka makes that conflict explicit, and the outcome in the primary [see update below] should be interesting — although not determinative for Murkowski, anyway. She lost the primary in the 2010 election in a fight with the Tea Party, only to win as an independent write-in in the general election. There is little doubt that the Murkowski name and political organization could compete in a similar manner, if necessary, so even a Tshibaka win in the primary might be a short-lived victory for Trump. Tshibaka is primarily known as Trump’s vehicle for revenge more than a real political choice, though, and Murkowski should be expected to best her given her deep Alaska connections.

If that internecine fight gets too bitter, though, Democrats could take advantage of the opening. The chances may be low, given Joe Biden’s tanking approval ratings and his halt on energy operations in Alaska, but Mitch McConnell has to know that those chances are non-zero. Murkowski has never won a majority of the vote in any of her Senate general elections; six years ago, her 2010 nemesis Joe Miller still got 29% of the vote as the Libertarian candidate, holding Murkowski down to a 44% plurality. (Democratic nominee Ray Metcalfe got 12%.)

The NRSC is taking this risk seriously already. On Sunday’s Meet the Press, Sen. Rick Scott confirmed that the NRSC would “absolutely” help Murkowski win re-election, which may put them into conflict with Trump too:

WATCH: NRSC Chairman @SenRickScott says he "absolutely" supports Lisa Murkowski in her race and will help her campaign against her challenger, whom Trump endorsed. #MTP pic.twitter.com/G11SgSQPzK

— Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) November 7, 2021

Looks like the fight is on. And in this instance, it will be Democrats passing the popcorn. Even if they may not get much chance to squeeze the seat away from the GOP, the internal fight might open up opportunities elsewhere as resources get shifted around.

Update: I had been unaware of this, but Gabe Hoffman informed me after this went live that Alaska has replaced its party primaries with an all-in ranked-choice process in which the top four candidates make the general-election ballot. It’s possible that both Murkowski and Tshibaka make it to the general election in that case, which means that the fight will extend all the way to November. That’s even worse for the GOP.