Heading into the final days of the primary season and the last few debates, the Alaska Democratic Party sent out a release, reminding people of the extreme views of the GOP Senate candidates Joe Miller, Mead Treadwell, and Dan Sullivan. “The Tea Party primary,” Alaska Democratic Party chair Mike Wenstrup, called it. And it is extreme: APRN reported that Treadwell said during a recent debate that abortion should be legal only if “both the mother and baby would otherwise die.” Miller would also make abortion illegal if he could. And so would Sullivan, with the exception of rape or incest. Further, both Treadwell and Miller embraced the National Sales Tax, a controversial proposal that would “raise the price of everything” by 30 percent, the Dems say, and would entail abolishing the IRS.

Indeed, after the primary, it’s hard to see how any of these three– Treadwell and Miller particularly–will be able to come back to the middle, where most Alaskans live.

New York Times reporter Josh Katz put a lot of time and a lot of energy into trying to bust the myth that polling in Alaska is more difficult than polling elsewhere.  Apparently, a bunch of people are discounting numbers coming out of Alaska, which is news to me. Perhaps Katz is responding to the blow-back from the New York Times’ new, online survey, which has been highly panned.

In any case, in order to try and bust the myth, Katz analyzed 889 polls spread over 155 Senate races across the country since 1992, He found that Alaska comes in as the fifth-most error prone state, behind Maine, New York, Maryland and Georgia. “(I)t’s not clear that we should discount numbers coming out of Alaska any more than we should numbers from, say, Georgia or Pennsylvania,” Katz writes.

There’s some glaring holes here. Continue reading →

U.S. Sen. Mark Begich said on Thursday afternoon that he stands by an ad his campaign produced and will continue to use it, even as U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s lawyer issued a cease and desist order, calling it “patently false.”

The ad features Skip Nelson, who claims to be a lifelong Republican who supports both Begich and Murkowski who vote as much as “80 percent of the time together.” Some of Nelson’s claims have been called into question.

“It’s a factual ad and I’ll continue to use it,” Begich said.

Questions about the ad were asked at a press conference in Anchorage that was largely focused on the U.S. Air Force announcement that it selected Eielson Air Force Base as the preferred location for squadrons of F-35 fighter aircraft in the Pacific. If it happens, it would be a large boost to Fairbanks’ economy and will likely be a boost to Begich’s campaign. Continue reading →

U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s campaign lawyer sent a letter to U.S. Sen. Mark Begich’s campaign demanding that it cease and desist the broadcast of an ad that’s been playing featuring the two together making a “great team.”

The ad, which has run on television and radio, has an “alarming lack of regard for the truth” and seeks to “mislead and deceive Alaskan voters,” the letter, written by Scott Kendall from Anchorage-based Holmes Weddell and Barcott, said. According to Kendall, the ads also constitute a “misappropriation of official U.S. Senate resources,” by featuring a picture of the two taken in Murkowski’s Senate office.

The use of Senate resources for campaign purposes is prohibited by federal law and Senate ethics rules.

The ad in question features Skip Nelson, Continue reading →

On Wednesday, GOP Senate candidates Mead Treadwell, Joe Miller and Dan Sullivan took to the stage for a Fairbanks Chamber of Commerce debate. Word is that Miller was the most comfortable, Treadwell had the best one-liners, and Sullivan didn’t make any big mistakes. Here are some tweets from the debate.

Candidates out on stage. Miller looks like he’s most in his element big smiles. #akelect pic.twitter.com/IMaA9X9JPr — Matt Buxton (@FDNMPolitics) August 6, 2014

Continue reading →

Below is an ad from U.S. Sen. Mark Begich’s campaign highlighting GOP candidates Mead Treadwell’s and Dan Sullivan’s extreme pro-life stances. If nothing else, the ad should put to rest the question about where the majority of Alaskans stand on the choice issue. Begich is a lot of things. Out of touch he isn’t. There’s been speculation that Begich is airing the following pre-GOP primary ad in order to boost Mead Treadwell’s support among the most ardent conservatives, who make up a relatively large chunk of the primary vote, and who have been suspicious of Treadwell’s commitment to the cause. It worked in Missouri when Democrat Sen. Claire McCaskill ran pre-primary ads calling GOP primary candidate Todd Akin “too conservative for Missouri.”

It’s unclear if that’s Begich’s motive, or if he’s including Treadwell in the ads because he thinks Treadwell has a chance of winning. Indeed, polls are tightening and it’s likely to be a close race. What is clear is that prior to running for office in 2010, Treadwell was known as a moderate, good government Republican, more interested in Arctic treaties than in firebrand conservatism.

Also interesting is that there’s no mention of Joe Miller, the most conservative of all of them. However, Miller is getting some help from the Nevada-based conservative super-PAC, Our Voice, which began running ads on Fox, tying Sullivan and Teadwell to Sen. Lisa Murkowski and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Not much is known about the group, and an FEC isn’t listed for the Alaska-spend. According to the latest FEC filing, the group only had $2,040 cash on hand.

Here’s Begich’s ad:

Here’s Democratic lieutenant governor candidate Bob Williams’ latest ad featuring 93-year-old Katie Hurley. It’s a big get for Williams. Hurley is a Democratic icon in Alaska. She was a clerk to Alaska’s Constitutional Convention, a former legislator, and the Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor in 1978. Williams, a Wasilla high school teacher, is running in the Democratic primary against Alaska state Sen. Hollis French for the seat.  It’s his first time running for statewide office. 

Oregon-based Moore Information conducted a poll of 500 Alaska likely voters on July 29-31. The poll was not conducted for any political candidate, political party, SuperPAC, or any  group supporting or opposing the repeal of the oil tax bill SB 21. But it did poll on the issue.

Here is the question and the results:

In August, there will be a ballot measure that would repeal Senate Bill 21, a bill which grants tax breaks to oil companies.  Based on what you know and have heard about SB21 and this ballot measure, would you vote yes to repeal tax breaks for oil companies, or no to oppose repealing tax breaks for oil companies?

The breakdown was:

Total Vote Yes – 40%
Total Vote No – 46%

Fourteen percent were still undecided, which seems like a lot two weeks before the election. The margin of error on a poll of 500 is typically plus or minus 4.5 percent. Moore also polls for Senate candidate Dan Sullivan, and has polled for Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Ted Stevens.

Vote Yes spokesperson T.J. Presley said that he wasn’t surprised by the results, considering the millions that have gone into the No on 1 campaign.

“We were always the underdogs,” he said. “We’ll just continue doing what we’re doing.”