State Rep. Gabrielle LeDoux is hitting the airwaves with the first ad of her primary challenge to deny longtime Rep. Don Young another term. The 60-second ad is available for viewing on YouTube, but embedding is unfortunately (and puzzlingly) disabled. KTUU reports that LeDoux is spending an impressive $100K on the ad buy — that’s quite a lot for the Alaska market.
I like the move for a few reasons — most notably, because she’s getting out in front of Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell and getting a much-needed boost in name recognition. The best hope for Democrats to win this seat is if the reform vote can be successfully split between Parnell and LeDoux, allowing the scandal-plagued Young to slip through. LeDoux hasn’t been a strong force in the latest polls we’ve seen, but that could change now that she’s making some significant expenditures.
LeDoux filed her 2Q fundraising report tonight, and while she only raised $43,000 since April 1st, she lent her campaign an additional $158,000 — leaving her with a considerable $289,000 in the bank. That’s enough to do some serious damage in a small market, and I have to wonder if the Club For Growth will ride in to attack both Young and LeDoux on Parnell’s behalf.
SSP currently rates this race as a “Tossup“.
Primary: August 26th.
LeDoux performing strongly is the only way we win, IMO. Young is not going to win a majority of the vote. Looks like she’s going to be a real factor and hopefully will split the reform vote with Parnell.
Great news.
http://newnebraska.net/showDia…
According to NNW Scott Kleeb has raised nearly $700K in Q2 fundraising, which is slightly more than republican nominee Johanns reported. Great news if true.
LeDoux is going to make this house seat a pick up for the Democrats. With his large add buy and money he will definitely split the anti Young vote with Parnell. Woot good job LeDoux!
Also remember that Young has a lot of money about a million dollars, he will spend that to make sure he gets past the primary but after the primary he will have little money left and will have moved to far tot he right and been attacked to much to be even a remote challenge for the Dem nominee.
I just want to remind you that Frank Murkowski thought a three-way primary would help him. The primary breakdown was 51-30-19, with Murkowski getting the 19%. I don’t know if Young is in as deep a hole as Murkowski was, but it’s not unprecendented that an unpopular incumbent end up third in Alaska. I’m hoping Parnell and LeDoux concentrate all their fire on each other.
but is there not a single poster from alaska? is don young hitting parnell in the face? are there lit pieces or ads showing that don young is the only republican you can trust in alaska? and that sean parnell is a desperate twerp out to avenge his father’s loss (like a certaing GW Bush).
If you just wish really hard, you can get it embedded.
🙂
In the contested Republican primary for Governor in 2006, 102,000 people voted in the Republican primary. That’s equal to more than 90% of the enrolled Republicans at the time (113,000).
Young’s in big trouble. The corruption may not hurt him as much as his ongoing feud with the Anchorage Daily News which not only serves as the major paper in Anchirage but also dominates the Matsusita-Susitna Valley, probably number two in population in the state (although about tied with the Fairbanks area. Young won’t deal with the ADN. No interviews, no press conferences.
Can’t wait to see the FEC filings for the major contenders.