Alaska Senate Race Results 2010: Could Lisa Murkowski Win?

by Amy Judd | November 3, 2010 at 07:45 am

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The Alaska Senate Race Results Are Far From Concluded But Lisa Murkowski Could Become Only the Second Candidate to Run a Winning Write-In Campaign For the Senate in U.S. History

Her opponent Joe Miller has said that he is not giving up however, and according to the Anchorage Daily News, could be getting ready for a possible court fight.

Out of the 438 precincts, about 432 are reporting, and 41 percent of voters have filled in the 'write-in' section on their ballot, most likely voting for Lisa Murkowski. The computerized voting system shows how many voters marked the section for 'write-in' candidate and those ballots are only looked at if they number higher than the votes for the leading candidate or if they are within .5 percent of each other in number.

There may be controversy over the 'write-in' section as while minor misspellings of Murkowski's name are probably ok, if someone just wrote 'Lisa M' that could be a problem and it could be debated if that should count.

However, it could be weeks before any final result is announced as all the ballots have to be examined to see if voters wrote in Murkowski's name correctly so that it can be counted. Currently Miller is holding about 34 percent of the vote, with Democrat Scott McAdams holding about 24 percent.

No one has been elected to the U.S. Senate as a write-in candidate since Strom Thurmond in 1954. That's also the last time the Giants, known as the New York Giants in those days, won the World Series. The now-San Francisco Giants took the title Monday night. But it's going to be a long wait to see if Murkowski was victorious as well.

Alaska is still waiting for absentee ballots to be counted on November 9 and for the ballots coming from overseas, which will not be counted until November 17.

If Murkowski manages to win as a write-in, political operatives and academics will be studying it for years. She distributed rubber bracelets with her name on it, t-shirts, even temporary tattoos. Murkowski, a well-known incumbent with a lot of money running in a small state, was also in a good position to try to pull it off.

Murkowski describes the campaign as 'surreal' and said she had so much love and support it was very exciting.

Miller wouldn't talk to reporters on election night. "We're a little disappointed, straight up," Miller campaign manager Robert Campbell said. "You can't be happy with five points down, and I think it would be silly for us to say otherwise."