Sen. Lisa Murkowski speaks with supporter Marty Weeks at her campaign headquarters in Anchorage, Alaska after the polls closed Tuesday evening, August 24, 2010. (Anchorage Daily News, MCT / Landov)
There’s a new wrinkle in Alaska’s hotly contested GOP Senate primary. With Senator Lisa Murkowski trailing Palin-endorsed insurgent Joe Miller, a source inside Murkowski’s campaign tells The Daily Beast the senator may abandon the GOP for a third-party run. Shushannah Walshe reports from Alaska.
The ongoing battle for who won the Republican primary in the Alaska Senate race will come down to the absentee ballots, but in an exclusive interview with The Daily Beast, a source within the Murkowski campaign says they know of one possible legal option to pursue a third-party run. If Murkowski is not victorious when the absentee ballots are counted and decides to wage an Independent party bid, they might consider using this option, which the source wouldn't describe, but did confirm they were seriously looking at.
"We are going to take a look at them and see whether the option is there or not, but it's a decision she (Murkowski) has to make," the Murkowski camp source said. "There is an option I know of."
Murkowski is not a secessionist, which Alaskans know, and an aggressive PR campaign promoting her independence rather than the AIP may be her only route back to Washington this fall.
In a general election, Murkowski would be hard to beat. The camp said it would also be a message to their supporters who didn't bother going to the polls Tuesday.
"If she were to make that decision she would definitely be a strong candidate. She has a substantial amount of money left, and one would have to wonder whether or not last night's results are a wake-up call to less-motivated, moderate, middle-of-the-road voters who went home after work yesterday in the sunshine and thought it's not a big deal, she would win."
Although it’s not exactly clear what options the Murkowski camp are now exploring, one possibility is running a write-in campaign, which would be a very difficult and unlikely option. According to the elections coordinator in the Alaska Department of Elections, Murkowski has until October 28 to file as a write-in, in which case write-in votes for her would be counted if the aggregate total of all write-ins is greater than ballots cast, or within the range that would require a recount. In the coordinator's 14 years, this has never happened in a state race.
The other possibility: the Alaska Independence Party. Former Governor Wally Hickel lost the Republican primary in 1990, but won in the general by being on the Alaskan Independence Party (AIP) ticket. A third-party run could work for Murkowski as the Democrat's candidate is largely unknown Sitka mayor Scott McAdams, but she would have to overcome the main reason the AIP exists in the Last Frontier: They are a secessionist party calling for Alaska to leave the United States. Obviously, Murkowski is not a secessionist, which Alaskans know, and an aggressive PR campaign promoting her independence rather than the AIP may be her only route back to Washington this fall.
In response, the Miller campaign pointed to heat Miller received in the primary because he left the Republican Party and then returned in protest over a dispute with party Chairman Randy Ruedrich, stressing that Murkowski doing the same would be “an uncomfortable thing to do.”
“It would be difficult ground to stand on. She loses the election and then says I’m going to take my marbles and I’m going home to be an Independent,” said a Miller campaign aide.
Shushannah Walshe is the co-author of Sarah From Alaska: The Sudden Rise and Brutal Education of a New Conservative Superstar. She was a reporter and producer at the Fox News Channel from August 2001 until the end of the 2008 presidential campaign.
Exclusive: Palin Foe Mulls Third-Party Run
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