It’s official – Lisa Murkowski just threw her hat into the Alaska Senate race, turning this contest into a three-way race between an insane teabagger, a party-line Republican, and a mainstream Alaska Democrat.
I don’t buy into the reasoning that says that a Murkowski bid hands the election to Joe Miller – three-way races are unpredictable things to handicap at the outset. Many will cite the PPP poll showing that Democrat Scott McAdams trailed in third place with Murkowski running as a Libertarian… but a write-in campaign is different kettle of fish, requiring a greater voter buy-in than a traditional campaign would demand. Note that the strongest write-in campaign for federal office in Alaska history came from sitting Democratic Senator Ernest Gruening in 1968, who won 17% against fellow Democrat Mike Gravel. (Imagine that: two Dems splitting the vote in Alaska and still yielding a win for Team Blue. Funny what oil wealth can do to a once-bluish frontier state.)
Much depends on the type of campaign that Murkowski chooses to run. Will she spend most of her time educating voters on how to spell her name (and how to shade an oval)? (Though note that precise spelling is not a deal-breaker according to the AK DoE.) Will she spend her war chest launching broadsides against her right – and her left? In her remarks tonight, Murkowski’s anger against Joe Miller was clearly palpable, deriding him for his “extremist views” and “lies”, and making a veiled reference to Miller’s Twitter adventures that we kindly exposed. In a way, she’s helping to do some of Scott McAdams’ work for him!
She ultimately declared that the “gloves were off” after a primary campaign that was criticized for being too restrained and lackadaisical, but also pointed her finger at “outside extremists” for her primary loss. As for those outsiders, you can bet that we haven’t heard the last from the Tea Party Express (as well as the Johnny-come-latelies at the Club for Growth).
I still think that Scott McAdams has a shot at this race, though much will depend on his fundraising (and thank you to all who showed your support on that score). Let the games begin.
A year ago, she was riding high, having resolved her differences with Sarah Palin and Palin even fundraising and donating to her. She has just been elected to Republican leadership. Now, she has lost to a Palin endorsed candidate, is being forced to run a write in campaign, and will be forced to give up her 3 leadership positions (Energy ranking member, NRSC Vice-Chair, GOP Caucus Vice-Chair)
Murkowski is going to go after. How partisan are Alaska Republicans? Democrats?
with a write-in campaign, and says she could win.
http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.n…
At least she has universal name recognition in AK, which Snelly Gibbr didn’t in TX-22.
And the AK elections people say they will be fairly liberal on interpreting voter intent WRT misspellings.
So would “Murk” get counted I wonder?
SSP raised the most money for McAdams outside of his campaign and the Democratic Party of Alaska.
Well done SSP!
Write-in candidate State Senator Robin Taylor received 18.26% of the vote in the 1998 Gubernatorial election against Tony Knowles. Apparently the guy who won the GOP primary had a complete ethical implosion afterwards, and the state party pulled their support of him and backed Taylor (the second-place candidate in the primary) as a write-in.
However, I don’t think the AK-GOP is going to do the same for Murkowski.
and an incumbent who can’t accept defeat shows up at your milkshake to drink it away with you.. I will therefore have more of a milkshake than you.
In other words: Miller 45, McAdams 26, Murkowski 24, Other 5.. thanks for never giving up Lisa, but there’s only one way to stop Joe Miller and it’s not you.
I say her write-in total is higher since the standards for these things is a lot better than it was in 1968.
The top percentage for write-ins in Alaska was 1974 for Governor
Jay Hammond (R-Inc) 49,580 39.1%
Wally Hickel (R-WI) 33,555 26.4%
Chancy Croft (D) 25,656 20.2%
Tom Kelly (Ind) 15,656 12.3%
Don R. Wright (Ind) 2,463 1.9%
Hickel lost his primary by 98 votes, then barely beat that primary total (31823) in the general. Ernest Gruening won 16015 votes in the primary and 14118 votes as a write-in in the general election.
Lisa Murkowski won 53K votes in the primary. If she wins around that total, it’ll be between 20-25%
And to clarify, Murkowski is not a better person or politician for doing this. It really is selfish and delusional to keep going here and to not recognize the reality of running as a write-in and splitting the vote.
McAdams had a path to victory against Miller by turning out Anchorage Democrats and – critically – overperforming in his native Southeast. Unfortunately, Murkowski’s presence makes the latter goal nearly impossible.
(Disclaimer: I have family in Ketchikan, and lived and worked there for part of 2003.)
I thought the Florida senate race was a dozy. Jesus Christ this is one crazy election cycle.
Again it is important we get some answer on what counts as a write-in. Murkowski is not the easiest name in the world to spell.
And the dem constantly pulls in arounf 39% to 45%. You guys forget, there are other parties that are running in this election (Libertarian and Independence I think.)
With this as a sort of Dem baseline, I could easily see McAdams win in Lisa and Miller duke it out and one of them gets 28% while the other gets 25% McAdams gets 43% and 3rd parties get 4%.
No idea how it will shake out. I look forward to seeing the state of this race and others when I return from my holiday. See you all in a week.
http://politicalwire.com/archi…
Miller 35% Murkowski 30% Minor Parties 3% leaves… McAdams 32%
Miller 40% Murkowski 24% Minor Parties 3% leaves… McAdams 33%
Miller 30% Murkowski 30% Minor Parties 3% leaves… McAdams 37%
Miller 30% Murkowski 35% Minor Parties 3% leaves… McAdams 32%
The only way this happens is if Murkowski is clear in her head that her first priority is to ensure that Joe Miller doesn’t win. Denying Joe Miller a victory has to be even more important to her than winning re-election herself, because once she drives Miller down to 30%, which is the precondition for a McAdams win, she will be tantalizingly close to reaching 35% herself. There is a fairly small window in which Miller doesn’t win but Murkowski doesn’t win either. But there is a very large window in which Miller wins, which is almost certainly what Murkowski least wants. So Murkowski is going to have to hit Joe Miller very very very hard, even at the cost of driving up her own negatives, if she wants to deny him the victory.
McAdams can wind up as the eventual victor, but most of the race will be out of his hands. He is responsible for being the sane, trustworthy, credible alternative, and for consolidating the Democratic vote. Beyond that, he has to count on Murkowski absolutely beating the shit out of Joe Miller, and driving the GOP nominee below 35%. There’s reason to think she will do that; it has to be the reason she bothered re-entering the race in the first place, because it’s probably her only path to victory as well.
Miller 40% Murkowski 41% McAdams 19%
The path of ceding the bulk of the GOP to Miller and going after Democratic votes just isn’t viable for Murkowski. She would have to drive the Democrat below 20%, running as a write-in, and while Lieberman did something similar in CT, Republicans were a lot more favorable to him nationally and locally than Democrats are to Murkowski. I think Alaska Democrats tend to respect Murkowski, but they’re not going to write her in over McAdams in the kind of numbers she would need to win. As a consequence, she won’t bother going for McAdams’ votes, except for a few at the fringes with some inexperience attacks. She has to go for Joe Miller’s. Both her desire for revenge and her electoral calculus demand that she push Joe Miller below 30%.
And McAdams could win if she does.
Unfortunately, if she does push Joe Miller down to 30%, she might turn on McAdams in a flash and try to scoop up the last 5% she needs to win re-election. But that 36% core of Alaska Democrats will be tasting victory by then; they’re not likely to defect. So she may well have to just keep on hammering Joe Miller and try to drive him down even further.
We’re gonna find out what kind of chops Lisa Murkowski has, that’s for sure.
On a scale that rates Members of Congress on a scale of “mean, destructive, ineffective, stupid right-wing loud-mouthism” that begins with Michelle Bachman and Joe Wilson somewhere near top of the list and would include Members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus near the bottom, who – in order- would be the five names at the very top of the list?
Is if Murkowski can marginalize Miller to the fringe and lock him in at about 25% of the vote, because then Dems would feel comfortable enough voting for McAdams, because if he lost Lisa would win.
Dems mission will be first to make sure Miller doesn’t win. If he’s polling ahead or slightly behind Murkowski then I think Dems will write-in Murkowski.
On the other hand I could see Murkowski supporters feeling much the same way – anybody but Miller. If Murkowski can’t get any footing for her write in and has topped out in the low twenties, I could see her voters flocking to McAdams.
Joe Miller is articulate and accomplished. Lisa Murkowski has no political skill and has her job ONLY because of her daddy. She’s a selfish sore loser who needs to learn some class.