Politico: Polls show life for Murkowski
By ANDY BARR
Two new polls released Wednesday indicate that Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s (R-Alaska) write-in bid may have legs.
A CNN/Time/Opinion Research poll showed Murkowski down by only 2 percentage points to GOP nominee Joe Miller, who upset the Alaska senator in the Republican primary last month. Democrat Scott McAdams came in third in the poll, drawing 22 percent.
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The survey of 927 likely voters found that Murkowski is running particularly well among women, lower-income voters and seniors. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points, and was conducted from September 24-28.
A separate poll released by Alaska-based Craciun Research reported Murkowski leading Miller by an 11 percentage point margin—41 percent to 30 percent. McAdams received 19 percent in that poll.
While the polls are good news for Murkowski, neither survey was able to gauge the likelihood that voters will indeed write in Murkowski’s name on the ballot—or if they will be able to correctly do so in order for their vote to be counted.
When broken down by party in the Craciun poll, Murkowski finishes second to both nominees, but appears to be pulling enough Republicans away from Miller and Democrats from McAdams to make it a race.
In the Craciun poll, Murkowski took 35 percent of Republicans and 30 percent of Democrats while neither McAdams nor Miller carried more than 60 percent of their own party’s voters.
The Craciun survey was based on interviews with 300 registered voters conducted Sept. 24-25 and had a margin of error of plus or minus 5.7 percentage points.
