Alaska’s GOP Senate nominee starts his quest to ask voters to “look into your heart”. Senate Democrats may start asking contributors to look into their wallets.
It had all the looks of an epic recount slugfest. Narrow margin of victory. A near blood fued between the waring factions. Lawyers from Washington. Instead, Alaska’s GOP primary battle royale ended with a whimper, not a bang:
Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska conceded late Tuesday in her Republican primary race to Joe Miller, a lawyer from Fairbanks backed by Tea Party activists, Sarah Palin and other conservatives…
Ms. Murkowski’s concession followed the counting of about 16,000 additional ballots on Tuesday, which left Mr. Miller with a lead of about 1,469 votes out of about 103,000 cast. Several thousand more votes were to be counted on Friday but the trend suggested Ms. Murkowski would not gain enough ground to win.
Despite fumbling her re-election bid worse than Joe Pisarcik and entertaining a variety of ways to get onto the November ballot, Lisa Murkowski decided – at least for the moment – not to further risk the odds of a Republican holding her seat come November. That hasn’t stopped Murkowski from sidestepping an endorsement of her primary bête noire. And from the looks of yet another early poll, Joe Miller could use the support as Rasmussen has Democrat Scott McAdams within 6%:
Rasmussen Alaska Senatorial Survey
- Joe Miller (R) 50%
- Scott McAdams (D) 44%
- Other 4%
- Not sure 2%
Favorable / Unfavorable {Net}
- Scott McAdams 43% / 36% {+7%}
- Joe Miller 50% / 44% {+6%}
To call McAdams’ post primary fundraising Lazarus-like would imply his financial efforts had once been alive. But since Murkowski and Miller headed to extra innings, Democrats in the lower 48 states have been slowly funneling McAdams coffers – thus far to the tune of just over $77,000. Such figures might help in the 173rd “largest” media market in the U.S., but McAdams may be fighting his own internecine battle with state and national Democrats who are hinting at trying to replace him with more established names like former Governor Tony Knowles or former Lt. Gov. Fran Ulmer.
More likely, Alaska will be witnessing two AAA candidates battling in the political majors, egging on by activists from both sides. Neither party’s senate branch is likely to pour resources into Alaska; the DSCC even moreso if McAdams remains on the ticket as they simply can’t afford to expend resources with so many vulernable incumbents. But that hasn’t stopped conservative and liberals activists from trying to throw gas on the cooling embers of the primary in an effort to stoke interest and donations. Consider the race the defacto Tea Party vs The Daily Kos battle of the frozen tundra.
But Joe Miller’s biggest opponent isn’t Scott McAdams but – depending on which numbers you feel matter more – either the 40% of Republicans who say they have an unfavorable opinion about him or the near 50% of Republicans who voted against him. To that effect, Miller needs to keep Tea Party interest in his campaign brewing lest the coffers run dry, especially as he attempts to bridge the divide between his supporters and Murkowski’s.
Could Murkowski torpedo the entire endeavor and endorse McAdams? Sure, but doing so would stain the entire Murowski legacy in Alaska and all but formally ensure that Lisa Murkowski’s political career truly ended on primary night. Murkowski’s relatively quick concession at least shows enough political acumen to suggest she’s still interested in surviving to fight another day.
Cross-posted at Shot in the Dark. Comments welcome.
