AK-Sen: AP Calls the Race for Murkowski

It’s all over but the tedious courtroom challenges, at least according to the AP, which called the Alaska Senate race within the last hour:

Ms. Murkowski emerged victorious after a painstaking, two-week count of write-in ballots showed she has overtaken tea party rival Joe Miller.

Her victory became clear when Alaska election officials confirmed they had only about 700 votes left to count, putting Ms. Murkowski in safe territory to win re-election.

Ms. Murkowski has a lead of about 10,000 votes, a total that includes 8,153 ballots in which Mr. Miller observers challenged over things like misspellings, extra words or legibility issues.

Joe Miller has maintained that he’ll stop fighting the race if the math doesn’t work in his favor, although it’s been clear for a week now that the math doesn’t work in his favor. He has also maintained that he’s going to keep pursuing legal action, although it’s unclear how long that’ll last once his financial backers do a cost/benefit analysis.

49 thoughts on “AK-Sen: AP Calls the Race for Murkowski”

  1. at all but it is good that she fought back the head “Mama Grizzly” in the state.  Why did folks in AK see her as anything but a Conservative Republican?  AK loves it pork and she is a bacon distributor for that state.  It is easy for them to hate the government spending with so much federal assistance for the state (like a lot of red states actually).

  2. First the senate longevity record falls to Byrd, his son loses to a black man, and now this.  At least Strom won a majority in his write-in.  

  3. I know she’s going to caucus with the Republicans (and perhaps naively I’m hoping freed from the past, she may become more Snowe- and Collins-like).  Is she going to do a Lieberman and be an “Independant Republican” (or just an “Independant”)?  Or now that the race is “over,” she’s completely back in the Republican fold (just out of the party leadership)?

  5. Yet another “Tea Party, Inc.” FAIL!

    While I’m not thrilled about Murkowski winning, I am relieved that Jim DeMint’s teabagger caucus won’t be as large next January as he hoped. It’s bad enough that we have to deal with him, Rand Paul, Pat Toomey, Marco Rubio, and Ron Johnson for the next 6 years, but it’s good to see that some of the craziest ones lost.

    (And I’m still proud to say my state was one of the states that turned them down!)

  6. Any guesses for what will happen first:

    A) Palin congratulates Lisa over Twitter

    B) Palin congratulates Lisa over Facebook

    C) Palin congratulates Lisa over a Fox News “interview”

    D) There will be no complimentary words from Palin to Lisa!!!!!!!

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