- University of Virginia Center for Politics’ Sabato’s Crystal Ball has changed his Alaska U.S. Senate race from “toss-up” to “leans Republican.”
- More awfulness about the National Guard scandal from leaked documents.
- Rasmussen Reports came out with a poll yesterday revealing that gubernatorial candidate Bill Walker is now leading with 50% to Gov. Sean Parnell’s 41%. The poll says that there are still 7% of undecided voters and it was conducted with a 4% margin of error.
- The sudden tilt in the governor’s race from a solid Parnell/Sullivan win to a potential Walker/Mallott victory has caught the eye of the National Journal. In an article that explains the political dynamics behind Parnell’s fall from election grace, Jim Lottsfeildt sums it up with the closing quote. “I don’t see how [Parnell] pulls it out right now. You could hand the guy $2 million right now and I don’t see how it’d be felt because the airwaves are choking with other messages. I don’t see this wave changing.”
- Speaking of the governor’s race: If Parnell expected to have any votes in Government Hill, he likely lost them. The Dispatch reports that the neighborhood’s sole gas station, Tesoro, has opted to stop pumping gas amid uncertainty over the very uncertain fate of the Knik Arm Bridge. All of which took the neighborhood by surprise, which isn’t a good thing to have happen before an election.
- Alaska Commons covered the Tuesday night Senate Youth Vote forum, featuring Sen. Mark Begich, libertarian Mark Fish, and independent candidate Ted Gianoutsos. Dan Sullivan was elsewhere.
- Bloomberg reports that “Harry Reid has his fingerprints all over Alaska’s Senate race,” and that of the $2.5 million that the pro-Begich Put Alaska First PAC, $2.4 million came from the Reid-aligned PAC, Senate Majority PAC in 15 separate installments.
- A new PAC has filed with the Alaska Public Offices Commission in support of Gov. Sean Parnell’s campaign according to the Dispatch. For Tourism Jobs-Vote Parnell is being co-chaired by John Binkley, chair of Fairbanks family business, Riverboat Dream Tours. ““It will be modest, educational, and absolutely positive,” Binkley said of the group’s outreach.
- The Juneau Empire reports that the federal appeals court for Alaska issued a temporary halt to gay marriages in Alaska. The halt will end, assuming an unlikely stay from the U.S. Supreme Court, at 11:00 am on Friday.
- The Hill reports that U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski is campaigning to replace the outdated and broken icebreakers in Alaska for polar fleets navigating through ice in Arctic. Why is it necessary? Russia maintains more than a dozen icebreakers.
- Americans for Prosperity has a new ad titled, “Fire Mark Begich!” They also have the same ad for other candidates.
- KTVA covered ASEA’s news conference on Wednesday on Dan Sullivan’s month’s-old ad that credits him with winning a $500 million settlement in a lawsuit against Mercer Consulting. The ASEA says the state would have been better served if Sullivan had taken the case to trial. The presser was centered around a report by Legislative Research services that used a hypothetical trial situation. The report did not include another hypothetical: Had the case gone to trial, the state might have gotten nothing, or could still be fighting in court. The report was requested by Sen. Hollis French, who at the time of the settlement, called it “gratifying.” Legislative Research Services is supposed to be non-partisan and its services are not supposed to be used for partisan purposes.
- Mark Plotkin with The Hill money-balls possible surprise upsets in November’s races. Interesting races to track outside of the Turbulent Three (Alaska, Arkansas, Louisiana) would seem to be Kansas, South Dakota, North Carolina and Georgia.
- The Fairbanks News-Miner reports that Sen. Pete Kelly and gubernatorial candidate Bill Walker have something in common: They were both left out of the voter pamphlet. “Kelly said he likely missed the messages, but didn’t fault the Division of Elections.”
- Juneau has the proud distinction of being named the best U.S. capital city to live in by SmartAsset which used an algorithm with data based on five factors including violent crimes, property crime, unemployment rates, average annual income and percentage of entertainment and dining establishments. But not, apparently, the number of good restaurants and rain-free days.
Contact Amanda Coyne at amandamcoyne@yahoo.com
Who knows? Walker won’t state his position or policies on most issues and he won’t say which Senate candidate he supports. He either has no policies, positions, or preferences for the U.S. Senate or he is being a jerk and purposefully ambiguous so he isn’t held to any one position and he can please everyone and get elected. But, underneath it all, if he is a conservative, Walker and Mallot would never work. A house divided will not stand.
Amidst all of this (justifiable) outage about the sexual assaults in the National Guard, I want to know why no one is turning the same heat on Walker and Mallot for Mallot’s silence about the culture of rape and violence in the villages? When has Mallot ever spoken out against all of the rampant raping of women and children in rural Alaska and all over Alaska? When has Mallot used his position to educate native Alaskans that this is not a cultural difference, that it’s a matter of right and wrong and that rape is ALWAYS WRONG? Why is it not Mallot’s burning passion — as it is Gov. Parnell’s — to rid this state of such a horrible (yet, in rural Alaska, accepted) evil? Where is Mallot’s personal “choose respect” campaign? He doesn’t have one. Yet, his voice would have more of an effect and make much more of a positive difference in rural Alaska than the Governor’s. It’s shameful that he doesn’t feel passionately enough about it to speak out against it, let alone campaign vigorously against it.
Stay tuned for the Walker/Malott ticket — they don’t agree on SB21 so far. What is this team’s official position? And where else are they not in sync?
The last two candidates who were mentioned as “surging” on this blog were Joe Miller and Mead Treadwell.
I’m not at all convinced that Parnell is going to lose. I suspect turnout is going to be lighter than anticipated and Parnell’s name recognition will carry the day. Remember, since Walker skipped the primary, he’s only been campaigning in earnest for 50 days or so. Parnell has been at it for 8 years.
You could have saved us all considerable time with a more brief and concise summmary such as –
Parnell is going to lose, Sullivan is surging and all this shit will be over in 19 days.