Hays Research. 10/26. Likely voters. MoE 4.8%
Write In Candidate 34
Joe Miller (R) 23
Scott McAdams (D) 29
The intrepid bloggers at Mudflats got their hands on this poll and published it. It's the first poll showing McAdams slotting into second place, as Republican disaster Joe Miller fades in the face of a terrible campaign, bizarre behavior, and embarrassing revelations. Note, this poll was also taken before Miller's latest scandal hit the front page of Alaskan newspapers.
Believe it or not, Miller's favorability ratings are 26/68, with 60 percent of that beng "very unfavorable". That's crazy unpopular!
Now check out the trend. I'm assuming that all the "write-in candidate" are for Murkowski. That may actually overstate her support by a point or so.
10/06 10/18 10/22 10/26
Murkowski (R) 31 32 31 34
Miller (R) 31 23 26 23
McAdams (D) 16 25 25 29
Undecided/Other 23 19 17 13
Like our previews poll, the "write-in" Murkowski lead is built in large part on Democratic support:
Write-in
Dem 26
Gop 40
Ind 29
Other 39
DK/Refused 41
Miller
Dem 1
Gop 39
Ind 19
Other 17
DK/Refused 14
McAdams
Dem 59
Gop 4
Ind 33
Other 27
DK/Refused 3
Yup, write-in gets over a quarter of Dems, which make up 16.4% of this poll's sample. Bring those Democrats home, and that'd be a 4.2 percent shift toward McAdams and away from write-in. In other words, McAdams 33, Write in 31.
I don't have access to the crosstabs of the previous polls, so I can't say where McAdsms' gains are coming from. Murkowski may have picked up three points from McAdams ... or from the undecideds. McAdams certainly has picked up undecided support, but has he gotten any Miller support? Mudflats certainly thinks many of Miller's supporters are more anti-establishment than crazy, and thus have shifted over to the Democrat. It's plausible. And the undecided category isn't static. McAdams may be draining from that pool, while Miller adds to it with each new revelation about his past.
Point is, this is a real game, and the situation remains quite fluid.
When we last polled the race, we found that 25 percent of Murkowski's support came from Democrats. As I wrote at the time:
Murkowski is competitive because of the 25 percent of Democrats who plan to write her in. Indeed, 35 percent of Obama voters plan on voting for Murkowski, compared to 58 percent that stick with McAdams.
Take that 35 percent who think they're doing something useful propping up Murkowski (and Mitch McConnell, who she has promised to vote for), give those votes to McAdams, and he's suddenly at 39 percent, or in the lead. In other words, the Democrats can win this seat if they come home to their excellent candidate.
McAdams refrain to Alaska Democrats has been, "vote your values, not your fears". Too many Dems think Murkowski is the only way to keep the crazy teabagger Miller out of the Senate. Well, now that Miller is fading, there's further reason for that fearful bunch to reassess.
There's a reason that Murkowski is now ignoring Miller and going hard after McAdams. There's a reason her new stupid slogan is "A Vote for McAdams is a Vote for Miller".
It's because McAdams is well positioned to pull this off. And there's no Senate race in the country in which your money goes further.
Scott McAdams is currently at a bit over $70,000 in our O2B ActBlue page. What do you say we get him to $100,000 by the end of Friday? Ready. Set. GO!
p.s. Thanks to the folks at Mudflats, who let me look at the internals of this poll so I could harvest additional data from it.
