PPP: Why Murkowski's (AK Senate) in it...and Crist (FL Senate) is not

[WI_DEM]

Why Murkowski's in it...and Crist is not

Polls we conducted last weekend found that Lisa Murkowski has a real chance to win the Alaska Senate race while Charlie Crist is pretty much done. What's causing their divergent fortunes? Here are some of the reasons:

1) In Alaska independent voter makes up 47% of the electorate, making them the largest voting group in the state. In Florida independents make up only 19% of the electorate, making them the smallest voting group in the state. Crist is actually doing better with independent voters, at 50%, than Murkowski is with them at 38%. But for Murkowski it's a much bigger part of the pot.

2) Murkowski still has some credibility with Republicans while Crist does not. The day Crist left the Republican Party that was it for his popularity with most voters in his old party. Now only 23% of GOP voters approve of the job Crist is doing as Governor and just 14% plan to vote for him this fall. Murkowski's decision to go it alone has certainly hurt her popularity with GOP voters- only 41% approve of her job performance- but the 31% of the Republican vote she's still getting compares very favorably to Crist.

3) The actual GOP nominee in Florida is a considerably stronger candidate than the one in Alaska. Marco Rubio's favorability rating is 45/43, not exactly phenomenal but ahead of the curve in a year when voters aren't responding positively to very many politicians. Joe Miller, on the other hand, is one of the most unpopular candidates anywhere this year at a 35/58 favorability. Republicans are a bit tepid about him and Democrats and independents pretty universally dislike him. If Miller was a more appealing fellow Murkowski might be just as doomed as Crist.

Those are some of the biggest reasons why Murkowski has a real chance while all Crist can do is pray for Kendrick Meek to drop out.

http://publicpolicypolling.blogspot.com/

[chimpymustgo]

1. Crist should drop out NOW. Go MEEK!!

[DrDan]

2. Crist dropping out will not put Meek over the top

all the R's supporting Crist will just swing to Marco

[chimpymustgo]

3. Well there's only one way to find out. DEMS should support the DEMOCRAT.

[RockaFowler]

4. YEAH!

I wish people would just support him - even here on DU. Kendrick Meek is a Progressive Democrat. Why are we even thinking about CharLIE Crist around here??

[DrDan]

5. because some do not want to have Mario in the Senate representing Florida

[Blue_In_AK]

6. Lisa isn't going to win, in my opinion.

As I pointed out in another post, three popular candidates have run write-in campaigns here before, including Wally Hickel, who is almost as sainted as Ted Stevens, with no success. Wally even sent out stickers with his name on them to every single registered voter in Alaska (something which is no longer permitted) and still only garnered 27% of the vote.

Robin Taylor, who ran a write-in campaign against John Lindauer, the Republican party nominee, and Tony knowles for governor, had the full support of the Republican Party after Lindauer imploded much like Joe Miller after the primary. Over 6,000 people misspelled Robin Taylor so badly that their intent could not be determined, and Taylor went down, giving us Tony as governor. Do you think voters will do any better trying to spell Lisa Murkowski?

Most people walk into the voting booth relatively uninformed. They will vote for one of the names that appears on the ballot. It's just too much trouble to write in Lisa Murkowski.


I read a post at the ADN yesterday that said in a recent Municipal election (I'm not sure which town), a bunch of people wrote in Lisa Murkowski. In other words, people don't even know what she's running for, and there will be lots of blanks for write-ins on the November ballot.


Polls cannot be trusted here.


I should also point out that if they just write in Murkowski, who do they mean? Lisa? Frank? "Lisa" is equally ambivalent. They're going to have to write in her whole name.