The outcome of the U.S. Senate race in Alaska hinges on two things: incumbent Lisa Murkowski’s success in teaching voters how to write her name correctly on the Nov. 2 ballot, and opponent Joe Miller’s ability to withstand a brewing scandal alleging his improper use of a workplace computer.
Murkowski, a Republican who began a write-in campaign after losing the GOP primary, is essentially tied in the polls with Miller, the Tea Party-backed Republican who beat her. Murkowski, however, is still viewed far more positively in the polls than Miller, who suffered a setback Tuesday when documents confirming that he had violated ethics rules as a town attorney in 2008 were released under court order. Miller, who had refused to discuss that violation during the campaign, resigned from the job.
Analysts say the three-way race — Democrat Scott McAdams is a distant third — is too close to call.
“It could be the clincher, yes,” Anchorage pollster Ivan Moore said. “We are just waiting for the shoe to drop here.”
After losing to Miller in the August GOP primary, Murkowski said Republicans and some Democrats urged her to get back into the race as a write-in candidate. She and Miller are now locked in a bitter battle.
Facing the additional challenge of not being on the ballot, Murkowski has been spending much of her time trying to teach Alaskans how to spell her name and fill out the oval drawn next to it on the ballot. Misspellings or half-filled ovals would cost her votes. Murkowski is handing out wristbands and even temporary tattoos that remind voters what they’ll have to do to re-elect the two-term senator.
“We all have our wristbands,” said Patty Weaver, manager of the Pikes Waterfront Lodge in Fairbanks. “It says to fill in the circle and it has her name. It’s blue.”
Weaver said she and other Murkowski supporters prefer her over Miller “because she’s honest, she’s hard-working and she has proven herself.”
But Weaver also admits Miller has plenty of support in Alaska’s largest city.
“It’s pretty split here in the interior,” Weaver said. “But there are an awful lot of rural folks who are for Murkowski.”
Murkowski, like the late Republican Sen. Ted Stevens, has delivered billions in federal funding to the Last Frontier. Miller proposes slashing that federal spending in Alaska to help reduce the federal deficit.
He also wants to phase out Social Security.
Miller’s defeat of Murkowski in the GOP primary was driven largely by Tea Party activists who flocked to his candidacy after Miller won the endorsement of former Alaska governor and Tea Party heroine Sarah Palin. Palin and other GOP leaders are scheduled to make a campaign appearance on Miller’s behalf Thursday in Anchorage to help rally voters.
The question now is whether Miller can reinvigorate his Tea Party supporters on Nov. 2 or whether more moderate Republicans will turn out for Murkowski, said Carl Shepro, a political science professor at University of Alaska Anchorage
“I think the party faithful kind of took for granted that [Murkowski] was going to win the primary and so did she,” Shepro said. “And so I think they woke up.”
