The most recent poll from the state of Alaska finds pro-life Senate candidate Joe Miller coming back against pro-abortion candidates Lisa Murkowski and Scott McAdams.
Miller now holds a 37-30-30 percentage point lead in the controversial contest, according to a new survey from the PPP polling firm.
The poll was conducted on Saturday and Sunday, which is a difficult time to gauge the accuracy of a poll. But the timing is important because it comes as news surfaced showing a local CBS media outlet plotting to emphasize negative news coverage against Miller.
“Miller is winning despite having the worst personal favorability numbers of the three candidates. Only 36% have a positive opinion of him while 59% view him in a negative light,” the PPP firm noted. “McAdams is by far the most popular with 50% rating him favorably to only 30% with an unfavorable one. Voters aren’t very enamored with Murkowski either, giving her a 37/53 approval rating.”
McAdams is more popular but trailing the race because 92% of the small group of voters that does like Miller is planning to vote for him while just 56% of the voters with a positive opinion of McAdams intend to cast ballots for him, while 31% of them are going for Lisa Murkowski.
PPP is of the opinion that Murkowski’s write-in campaign is now coming not at the expense of Miller but at the expense of McAdams as they are essentially splitting the anti-Miller vote.
“The high number of voters who like McAdams, dislike Miller, and are voting for Murkowski place the race in a whole different light than has been thought of the last few months. Murkowski’s campaign, rather than propping herself up at the expense of Miller, may actually end up propping Miller up at the expense of McAdams,” the firm explained.
Murkowski will lose the race, PPP notes, because “she retained little goodwill from Republicans after deciding to make an independent bid’ as just 27% of GOP voters are planning to vote for her on Tuesday. She also failed to put herself in good stead with independent voters. She is slightly ahead with them, getting 34% to 32% for McAdams and 31% for Miller but they are not giving her a strong advantage the way Democrats do for McAdams and Republicans do for Miller.
PPP surveyed 1,539 likely Alaska voters and the margin of error is +/- 2.5%.
At the end of last week, Sarah Palin campaigned for Miller at a large rally.
“Let’s send Joe Miller to the United States Senate to shake it up,” Palin said at the Miller event in Anchorage, the largest city in the state where she served as governor.
“I read his resume, I read his accomplishments, I read his passion for America, and I think, ‘Are we even fit to tie his combat boots?’” Palin said to cheers from the large crowd.
She did not mention Murkowski by name by talked about the “out of touch liberal” and “establishment candidate” who is waging a write-in campaign after becoming frustrated with losing to Miller in the Republican primary.
Palin’s appearance on Miller’s behalf came one day after the Alaska Supreme Court issued a ruling saying election officials must hand out a list of write-in candidates if voters request it so they can properly spell Murkowski’s name. But dozens of people registered as write-in candidates at the last minute in order to populate the list of candidates and make it more difficult for Murkowski to get her name in front of voters on the list.
Miller is strongly pro-life and has received the endorsement of pro-life groups, which confirm Murkowski is pro-abortion and has voted for taxpayer-financed abortions.
