Talking Points Memo has a new story up about the Alaska senate race:
The flood of write-in candidates in the Alaska Senate race was pushed by Big Government's Dan Riehl and the conservative group Conservatives 4 Palin in an attempt to hurt Sen. Lisa Murkowski's own write-in campaign and give Republican nominee (and tea party favorite) Joe Miller a boost.
Except that McAdams is more likely to benefit now.
The list of candidates prepared by the state board of elections includes around 150 write-in names (read it carefully; the list includes people who were denied for filing too late). It includes names such as:
Lisa M. Lackey (Republican)
Tom M (Non-Affiliated)
Daniel C. Piaskowski (Non-Affiliated)
Lyn Marcum (Non-Affiliated)
(I kid you not; "Tom M" actually got on the list.)
And while these and other names may not necessarily confuse voters, it's a bit of a pain to wade through them to find the real Lisa Murkowski and spell her name correctly on the write-in. And enough names are close enough to hers that I can already see an argument building that the voter meant to write in, say, Piaskowski instead.
But the thing is, as several diarists have been pointing out here, Miller is slipping. Badly.
Hays asked the question,(replicating the experience of the voter going in to the booth in which they will not see the name of write-in candidate Lisa Murkowski on the ballot) "If the election for U.S. Senate were held today, and the candidates were Joe Miller, Scott McAdams, Frederick Haase, Tim Carter, Ted Gianoutsos, or another candidate you have to write in, for whom would you vote, or are you undecided?
The result? Scott McAdams surging ahead of Joe Miller with 29%, Joe Miller with 23%, and the write-in candidate (most of which are presumably Lisa Murkowski) with a small gain bringing her to 34%, and undecided voters still at 13%. This is the first time that McAdams has polled better than Miller, and he did it by six points, comfortably outside the margin of error of 4.8% – a watershed moment for the McAdams campaign. The Mudflats 28 Oct
McAdams is ahead of Miller and catching up to Murkowski, so every vote that Murkowski loses to a write-in candidate is more likely to help McAdams than Miller.
Meet the Tea Party - the new gang that couldn't shoot straight.