Swing State Project

Public Policy Polling (8/27-29, likely voters, 6/26-27 in parens):

Ted Strickland (D-inc): 40 (41)

John Kasich (R): 50 (43)

Undecided: 10 (16)

(MoE: ±4.5%)

This does not bode well:

The race has pretty much shaped up as a referendum on Strickland and that is not to the incumbent’s advantage. Only 34% of voters in the state approve of the job he’s doing while 52% disapprove. Republicans are now almost universal in their disapproval of him at 83% while Democrats are a little more divided in their support of his work at 67%. Independents go against him by a 59/26 margin as well.

The biggest change since PPP’s last poll of this race, before they had shifted over to a likely voter model, is that Kasich went from a 73-12 lead among Republicans in June to an 89-5 advantage now. All this while Strickland claims the support of 78% of Democrats and the sample went from voting for Obama by 50-44 to having pulled the lever for McCain by 48-45.

Ted Strickland has run a good campaign, but he can’t make the weather.

Ipsos for Reuters (8/27-28, likely voters, no trendlines):

Joe Sestak (D): 37

Pat Toomey (R): 47

Undecided: 15

(MoE: ±4.9%)

Ipsos strikes in another state with another of their interesting both-LV-and-RV polls. The enthusiasm gap seems as big here in Pennsylvania as it does anywhere: the LV model spells certain doom for Dems, with Joe Sestak falling into a double-digit deficit against Pat Toomey, while the RV model (MoE 4%) says this is still a perfectly salvageable race, with Toomey leading Sestak 40-37. (Unfortunately, the LV model is the one that counts in the end.) Any remaining Arlen Specter fans won’t feel vindicated by this poll: if Specter were running against Toomey, he’d be losing just as widely, 52-40.

Maybe realizing that the strategy he used so effectively and efficiently against Specter in the primary (wait, wait, wait some more, and then unleash a massive, expertly targeted salvo in the closing weeks) won’t work if he gets himself in too deep of a hole beforehand, Joe Sestak is breaking open the piggybank and going on TV. His first ad is anti-Toomey spot, working the Wall Street angle (already thoroughly explored by the DSCC). It’s a buy through Sept. 6th, for a total of $111K, with ads running in the Pittsburgh, Johnstown, Harrisburg, and Wilkes-Barre markets (not Philly, where presumably he’s better known).

Dan Onorato (D): 34

Tom Corbett (R): 49

Undecided: 16

(MoE: ±4.9%)

Same deal with the gubernatorial race: the LV model yields a 15-point lead for GOP AG Tom Corbett over Dem Dan Onorato. Switch over to a registered voter model, and it’s only a not-bad 43-37 advantage for Corbett. Again, plans of getting all those RVs to magically show up aren’t really hopes you should hang your hat on, at this point in the game, though.

Mason-Dixon for Las Vegas Review-Journal (8/23-25, likely voters, 8/9-11 in parentheses):

Harry Reid (D-inc): 45 (46)

Sharron Angle (R): 44 (44)

Other: 2 (2)

None of these: 4 (3)

Undecided: 5 (5)

(MoE: ±4%)

Sounds like Nevadans really, really would like another option. Maybe most interestingly, two-thirds of Sharron Angle’s supporters in this weekend’s Mason-Dixon LVRJ poll of NV-Sen say they wish someone else had won the Republican nomination. Now there’s a vote of confidence! By contrast, only 18% of Harry Reid voters wish the same regarding the Dem nomination. (Among undecided voters, that number for Angle goes up to nearly 80%, and 58% wish the same about Reid.) At any rate, Harry Reid’s favorables are 39/52 and Angle’s are 32/43. Strangely, though, Nevada’s vaunted unique NOTA option is only polling at 4%, not much higher than where it usually winds up with high-profile statewide races.

Gubernatorial numbers (7/26-28 in parentheses):

Rory Reid (D): 31 (31)

Brian Sandoval (R): 53 (50)

Other: 2 (2)

None of these: 3 (3)

Undecided: 11 (14)

(MoE: ±4%)

The son also does not rise.

AK-Sen: Lulz. Ex-state Rep. Andrew Halcro is still carrying the torch for a Murkowski Libertarian bid, despite the fact that the Alaska Libertarian Party voted to reject having Murkowski on their ticket over the weekend. Halcro is telling The Hill (and anyone else willing to listen, apparently), that he thinks the Libertarians would be willing to reconsider, as long as Murkowski is the one who reaches out directly. And maybe he’s actually got something there, as the state Libertarian chair, Scott Kohlhass, said yesterday that “as a sitting senator, we’d always be open to sitting down and talking to Lisa Murkowski.” This is the same guy who, we remind you, previously announced that Murkowski was unwelcome on their ticket due to “fundamental differences”. Make up your minds already!

It’s also worth noting that Murkowski didn’t sound all that interested in carrying this fight on to the general election in her concession speech last night. While she didn’t endorse Miller, she spoke of her plans for the future, saying that she was looking forward to “coming home” at the end of her term. I don’t think a Libertarian bid, or a write-in campaign, is in the cards.

Meanwhile, the NRSC has been busy trying to convince the world that Joe Miller has this shit locked. On Monday, they released a Basswood Research poll (8/28-29, likely voters) showing Miller leading Sitka Mayor Scott McAdams by 52-36. PPP tested the race around the same time and found Miller ahead by only 47-39.

FL-Gov: The St. Pete Times is hearing “considerable buzz” that Bud Chiles, the son of legendary former Democratic Gov. Lawton Chiles, will pull the plug on his independent gubernatorial candidacy. Chiles, who seemed to be having a net-neutral impact on the race due to his support from Dixiecrat-flavored voters, reportedly was spotted having lunch with Democrat Alex Sink in Miami yesterday. Is an endorsement on tap?

WI-Gov: Jesus. Are these the kind of headlines that you really want to be generating?

Wis. cand. runs fighting ad aimed at attack victim

Scott Walker is up with a new ad in which he dons boxing gloves and vows to “go the distance” against Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett. Barrett, as you may recall, was brutally attacked while intervening in a domestic violence incident at the Wisconsin State Fairgrounds last summer, sustaining injuries from which he may never fully recover. Talk about not thinking through all the angles…

CT-05: GOP state Sen. Sam Caligiuri won the endorsement of the Independent Party of Connecticut yesterday, meaning that he’ll appear on the ballot against SSP hero Chris Murphy on both the Republican and Independent lines.

IA-03: Dem Rep. Leonard Boswell rolled out an endorsement Monday from architect Mark Rees… who was most recently seen losing the Republican primary for the nomination to challenge Boswell back in June. Rees, who drew 4% in the GOP primary, says that he’s backing Boswell because the Republican nominee, state Sen. Brad Zaun, is too far to the right “on all the issues”.

NV-03: AFSCME shelled out $750K for attack ads on GOPer Joe Heck, and they’re out with their second ad in the series, a thirty-second spot on the topic of Social Security privatization.

NY-24: Here’s a double-dose of bad news for Mike Arcuri. First, the New York Board of Elections recommended that Libertarian Ernest Logan Bell be removed from the ballot after coming up short on valid ballot signatures. (Never fear, fans of liberty, Bell’s encouraging his supporters to write-in his name in November.) Next, it seems that Arcuri’s “NY Moderates” Party line is in jeopardy. Republicans in the district pointed out the existence of a state statute that says that ballot lines aren’t allowed to include the words “New York.” Election officials say that may cause Arcuri’s indie line to go up in smoke, but are putting off a final decision on the matter until September 16th. Arcuri’s attorney, for what it’s worth, says that the party name will merely change to “Moderates”. Good luck with that.

VA-09: Benenson Strategy Group (8/18-22, likely voters) for Rick Boucher:

Rick Boucher (D-inc): 55

Morgan Griffith (R): 32

Is that too optimistic for Boucher? Perhaps, but it’s not entirely far-fetched, either. A July poll by SurveyUSA — not the most Dem-friendly pollster this cycle — had Boucher up by 52-39. Despite the bottom falling out for so many Democratic incumbents in tough districts, Boucher appears to have more staying power than some of his colleagues.

WI-07: At SSP, we always try to give you the Size Of The Buy where possible. We reported yesterday that the DCCC was hitting the airwaves with their first independent expenditure ad of the cycle against ex-Real World star Sean Duffy. Turns out the buy is for $36,500 — not breaking the bank by any means, but House party committees rarely saturate the airwaves in August.

I don’t believe the title needs further explanation.

Can you guess what this map is of?

The map up top is the 2008 race between Mark Begich and Ted Stevens, in which Begich prevailed by 1.25%.

If you guessed that correctly (without cheating), 10 points for Gryffindor. If you did cheat and look at the file name, boo on you too, but you can look at the Anchorage inset anyways:

Here’s a redux of the Murkowski-Miller race (blue for Murk, Red for Miller; Absentees not included):

And you can judge for yourself similarities between that at the 2008 GOP primary, Young-Parnell (Young in blue, Parnell in red):

I’m not that optimistic about Scott McAdams’ chances in November, but there does seem to be a path for him:

Areas of strong Begich performance are decently correlated with areas of strong Murkowski performance – or put differently – weaker Miller performance. Given that, this seems to bode somewhat better for McAdams, in that he could piece together the Begich coalition of Anchorage + Outlying Areas + Juneau for a win, pulling in disaffected Murkowski GOPers. Those areas (notably, GOP voters in those areas) weren’t exactly hopping for Miller.

• WI-Sen: Know how you can tell that this hypocrisy-on-government-aid problem (see the last couple digests for backstory… Ron Johnson’s company Pacur has been repeatedly expanded with the help of government loans, y’know, the kind that of meddling in the free market that we have to get rid of) is putting a scare into the Johnson camp? Now he’s been rewriting history on Pacur’s website to adjust the founding date of his company, from 1977 to 1979. Johnson had previously claimed that the railroad spur built (with federal help, natch) to his company was in early ’79, before Pacur was founded. (Pacur’s predecessor company was founded in ’77; it changed names in ’79.)

• CO-Gov (pdf): Republican pollster Magellan is out with a new look at the Colorado gubernatorial race; they find the combined Dan Maes + Tom Tancredo vote still less than the John Hickenlooper vote. It’s Hickenlooper 46, Maes 27, Tancredo 17. (That’s a lot fewer undecideds than today’s Rasmussen poll; see below.)

• FL-Gov: Ah, the sweet smell of unity. Well, sort of… the state party finally got around to having its fete for newly-minted gubernatorial nominee Rick Scott, the one canceled last week for lack of, well, unity. Insiders like state House speaker Dean Cannon and next state Senate president Mike Haridopolos toasted Scott, despite the fact that up until last Tuesday they were working hard to defeat him. There was someone important missing, though, that kind of defeats that whole “unity” thing… it was Bill McCollum, who confirmed yet again today that he’s “staying out of” the governor’s race. Meanwhile, DGA head Nathan Daschle (here’s a guy who knows how the game is played) is out with a bit of concern trolling of his own, offering unsolicited advice to RGA head Haley Barbour and other interested Republicans that they probably don’t want to be seen campaigning next to Scott.

• NM-Gov: Biden alert! The Veep will be bringing his patented comedic stylings to the Land of Enchantment to host a fundraiser for Diane Denish, whose once slam-dunk gubernatorial bid has deteriorated into a jump-ball.

• NY-Gov: State GOP party chair Ed Cox is having a helping heaping of crow from breakfast, having to get behind Rick Lazio for the GOP gubernatorial nod… out of fear of the possibility of the even more objectionable Carl Paladino winding up with the nomination. (Remember, Cox recruiting Suffolk Co. Exec Steve Levy to not only get in the race but switch parties to do so, only to watch him crash and burn.) Cox issued a letter urging local party leaders to get behind Cox, filled with magnanimous praise, perhaps none more so than when he calls Lazio “credible.”

• AR-04: Rounding out their tour of the state, Talk Business Journal/Hendrix College take a look at the 4th, the only non-open seat in all of Arkansas. Despite the rough poll numbers that they found for the Dem candidates in the 1st and 2nd, they find Mike Ross in solid shape, probably thanks to an underwhelming opponent in the form of Beth Anne Rankin. Ross leads 49-31, with 4 going to Green candidate Joshua Drake.

• FL-08: In yet another example of Alan Grayson zigging when other Dems zag, he’s out with an internal poll, and it puts him in surprisingly strong shape against Daniel Webster, thanks in large part to a strong performance by “other” (presumably the Tea Party candidate). The PPP poll gives Grayson a 40-27 lead over Webster, with 23 for “Other” and 11 undecided. That’s all in the face of a new ad campaign from Americans for Prosperity, who are out with ads in the Orlando market attacking both Grayson and FL-24’s Suzanne Kosmas. (AFP, of course, is the front group for the right-wing billionaire Koch family, and the DCCC has recently filed IRS complaints against AFP for engaging in political advocacy despite its tax-exempt status.)

• FL-22: Allen West is out with a second TV ad focusing on economic issues, like that burdensome debt. (He’s talking about national debt, not his own debts.) Still, most of the buzz in this race right now seems to be about his latest round of unhinged remarks on his campaign website’s blog, in which he called opponent Ron Klein, calling him, among other things, a “cretin,” “little Lord Ron,” a “pathetic liberal,” “little Ronnie,” and “a mama’s boy” to Nancy Pelosi.

• IA-05: Rep. Steve King declined to debate opponent Matt Campbell in about the douchiest way possible: when Campbell showed up at a King town hall to ask King why he wasn’t willing to debate, King said that Campbell had “not earned it.”

• MI-01, MI-07: Well, it looks like the fake Tea Party is truly finished in Michigan. The Michigan Court of Appeals today upheld the Board of Canvassers’ decision them off the ballot because of irregularities in submitted signatures. There were Tea Party candidates ready to go in the 1st and the 7th, both competitive districts where Dems would be glad to have some right-wing votes siphoned off from the GOP candidates.

• MO-04: Rep. Ike Skelton is the chair of the House Armed Services Committee, and he wants you to know it. Instead of focusing on the endless jobs-jobs-jobs mantra like many Dems, he’s focusing on military issues and his commitment to veterans. His first two ads featured testimonials from a Marine mother and an Army veteran, and his third ad attacked GOP opponent Vicky Hartzler over her apparently insufficient support of the military.

• NC-11: Two Democratic House members out with internals? Let’s hope this is actually a trend. Buried in a CQ article about his new TV ad (with a buy in the “high five digits”), there are also some details about Heath Shuler’s most recent internal poll. The poll, taken by Anzalone-Liszt, gives Shuler a 51-34 lead over Jeff Miller. More ads are likely to follow, as Shuler leads Miller in the cash department, $1.4 million to $70K.

• NY-13: Rep. Mike McMahon’s getting some big name help on the stump. Bill Clinton will join McMahon for a Friday rally on Staten Island.

• NY-20: Scott Murphy’s dipping into his big war chest with another TV spot, this one focusing on his job-preserving efforts. Murphy opponent Chris Gibson, meantime, dropped a bombshell in his first debate against Murphy last week: that government intervention exacerbated the Great Depression rather than mitigated it (a theory advanced by Amity Schlaes and approximately, oh, zero other respected economists).

• PA-10: What’s up with former US Attorneys in Pennsylvania turning out to be thin-skinned, poor campaigners? There’s the Mary Beth Buchanan implosion, of course, but now video has turned up of Tom Marino’s recent encounter with protesters at a Williamsport appearance. Marino yells back to protestors “What do you do for a job?” and “What kind of welfare are you on?” (No word on whether these questions were punctuated with “You hippies!”)

• VA-05: Here’s a guy we haven’t thought about in a long time: Ross Perot. Yet, Tom Perriello is dusting off Perot and holding him up as a guy he liked, especially in terms of his deficit hawkishness. He did so in the context of meeting with the local Tea Partiers (where he also reiterated his support for canning the Geithner/Summers economic team), probably in an effort to find some common ground with them.

• State legislatures: The DLCC has a memorandum out that lays out where they’ll be focusing their efforts this year (and thus what they consider to be the most competitive state legislative chambers). The 10 chambers they’re emphasizing on defense are the Alabama Senate, Colorado Senate, Indiana House, Nevada Senate, New Hampshire Senate, New York Senate, Ohio House, Pennsylvania House, Wisconsin Assembly, and Wisconsin House. They’re also going on the offense in the Michigan Senate, Kentucky Senate, Tennessee House, and Texas House..

• WA-Init: SurveyUSA has polls of a handful of initiatives that’ll be on the ballot in November. Most significantly, they find continued (although reduced, from their previous poll) support for I-1098, which would create a state income tax for high earners. It’s currently passing, 41-33. Meanwhile, Washingtonians quite literally want to have their cake and eat it too: they’re favoring I-1107, by a 42-34 margin, which would end sales taxes on candy and end temporary taxes on bottled water and soft drinks.

• Dave’s App: Just in time for the school year, here’s a new time-wasting opportunity: Dave’s Redistricting Application now has partisan data for Pennsylvania. (There’s also partisan data for CA, MD, NC, NM, NY, and TX.)

• Polltopia: PPP wants to know where you think they should poll next. Interesting options include Maine and West Virginia (where there’s the tantalizing prospect of House races being polled, too).

• Ads:

• MO-Sen: Anti-Roy Blunt ad from Robin Carnahan

• NH-Gov: Positive jobs-jobs-jobs spot from John Lynch

• FL-02: Allen Boyd hits Steve Southerland on Social Security privatization, 17th Amendment

• IN-09: Anti-Baron Hill from Todd Young

• IN-09: Anti-Todd Young ad from Baron Hill (Social Security privatization… sensing a theme here?)

• MN-06: Bio ad from Tarryl Clark

• MN-06: Michele Bachmann wants you to know that she hates taxes

• NJ-12: Emergency Committee for Israel ad against Rush Holt (“modest but real” buy)

• OH-15: Positive bio ad about Steve Stivers’ military service

• PA-11: Paul Kanjorski’s first TV ad, hitting Lou Barletta over what a shithole Hazleton is

• SC-05: Bio ad from Mick Mulvaney (his first ad)

• WI-07: DCCC ad attacking Sean Duffy over Social Security privatization (their first independent expenditure ad anywhere)

• Rasmussen:

• CO-Gov: John Hickenlooper (D) 36%, Dan Maes (R) 24%, Tom Tancredo (C) 14%

• OH-Sen: Lee Fisher (D) 39%, Rob Portman (R) 44%

• PA-Sen: Joe Sestak (D) 39%, Pat Toomey (R) 45%

The new tally:

More updates as we get ’em.

11:50pm: Y’know, I get a lot of spam from the DSCC. It’s been well over an hour since Murkowski has conceded, and the DSCC has yet to put out a statement on the results. Quite the operation they’re running there.

11:33pm: It didn’t occur to me to mention this, but Murkowski also said she’d be “going home” to Alaska at the end of her term — so it’s pretty clear that she won’t be attempting a write-in campaign.

11:21pm: One final ballot update for the night — Miller added 628 votes and Murkowski added 467, bringing the gap to 1,630 for Miller. Which wasn’t far off from where we started the day at!

10:28pm: Murkowski just walked away from the podium without endorsing Joe Miller. Game on!

10:21pm: Murkowski just conceded to Miller.

9:41pm: Murkowski will hold a press conference in twenty minutes.

9:40pm: Being generous, let’s say there are 7000 valid GOP votes left to be counted. Murkowski would need 61% of them to win. She’s done.

9:18pm: Murkowski is basically toast at this point, as she just couldn’t get the juice she needed from Anchorage or the Southeast. 15,700 votes were counted today, and a number of Kenai absentees will be added to the total later in the evening. Murkowski would have to win an absurd amount of the uncounted GOP ballots (which has to be, what, 7K or so at most?) to pull this out. Not happening.

9:04pm: Miller adds 1,062 votes to Murkowski’s 803 in the latest update. Miller’s lead has shot up to 1,469 votes.

8:24pm: So that last batch of votes came from Southeast Alaska, the Kenai Peninsula and Fairbanks — 3,000 more votes from these areas are expected tonight, but it’s starting to look pretty grim for Murkowski.

8:08pm: And we’re back! Since we last checked in, Miller added 1,057 votes and Murkowski took 1,139. The gap is now 1,210 votes.

7:20pm: SSP is taking a temporary break from the liveblog, but we’ll be back shortly. In the meantime, keep your eyes peeled on that DoE page!

7:08pm: We finally have a bit of movement — Miller picks up 353 votes and Murkowski adds 355. 50,241 to 48,949 for Miller.

6:50pm: The ADN reports that the next round of ballots to report will come from Southeast Alaska and the Kenai peninsula — about 5800 absentees and questioned ballots from areas where Murkowski is hoping to romp in. Following that, we’ll get a look at about 2750 votes from Miller-friendly Fairbanks.

5:54pm: In the comments, trhawk notes that it looks like the absentees from Anchorage HDs 27-32 have already reported, and possibly were bundled into the Mat-Su valley results. Murkowski won those HDs by nearly 55% on e-day, and if their absentees were lumped in with the Mat-Su update, that would explain why Murkowski appeared have run so much stronger in those Miller-friendly areas. Meanwhile, the ADN reports that Anchorage is done for the day, although 3000 questioned ballots and a “small number” of absentees remain to be counted there. The next round of votes to be counted will come from Juneau, followed by Fairbanks later in the evening.

5:24pm: Another update — Miller just added 322 votes, Murkowski 488.

5:19pm: From Shira Toeplitz:

There will be 1,273 fewer ballots processed today than planned. Election officials announced that a set of questioned ballots from four state House districts in the Mat-Su Valley area will be opened Friday instead of Tuesday. …During last Tuesday’s primary, the ballots in these four state House districts voted for Miller over Murkowski, 62 percent to 38 percent.

4:29pm: The Anchorage Daily News reports that the latest batch of absentees came from the Mat-Su valley, specifically House Districts 13 through 16. Crunching the numbers myself, on election day, Murkowski won 38% of the vote in those districts. Among the absentees, she’s picking up nearly 48% of the vote — a much bigger improvement than among the Anchorage absentees, but she still has a long way to go.

4:12pm: A bunch more votes just came in — we’re now at 49,566 for Miller and 48,106 for Murkowski. Miller added 1,515 votes and Murkowski added 1,380.

3:55pm: Mike Memoli tweets that Alaska DoE officials are expecting to count ballots until 10pm Eastern tonight.

3:36pm: Crunching the numbers using Jeffmd’s spreadsheet, Murkowski won House Districts 17 through 26 on election day by 53% of the vote. She won 57% from this batch of absentees.

3:25pm: Good news for Jumbo Joe Miller:

It looks like 2,391 votes were counted in this first batch. They’re from Districts 17 through 26, all Anchorage.

As noted below, Murkowski was expected to run strongly here. Miller-friendly areas will report later today.

3:16pm: It’s not yet clear where this batch of votes came from, but ADN reported that the first batch of results was expected to come from the Anchorage area, where Murkowski ran strongly. More votes are expected from the Mat-Su and Fairbanks regions later today, which are more Miller-friendly.

3:10pm: We now have our first update (of several to come) today. Miller added 1,024 votes to his tally today, and Murkowski added 1,367.

Public Policy Polling (8/27-28, likely voters, 7/27-31 in parentheses):

Elaine Marshall (D): 38 (37)

Richard Burr (R-inc): 43 (39)

Michael Beitler (L): 6 (7)

Undecided: 13 (17)

(MoE: ±3.6%)

Things are looking pretty stable in the North Carolina Senate race according to PPP. Richard Burr has put a little distance between him and Elaine Marshall, with most of the movement to Burr coming out of the undecided column, as it seems like he’s finally getting better acquainted with his constituents (he’s up to only 20% “no opinion,” a Paris Hilton level of celebrity compared to where he was a year and a half ago; he has 38/42 approvals). Marshall is still laboring in obscurity by comparison, although she’s at least in positive territory, with 24/21 favorables.

The move from a 2-point Burr lead to a 5-point lead may seem like bad news, but Burr’s leads were 5, 7, and 1 in previous PPP polls, so it’s all routine movement within a narrow band. The overall regression lines are showing some mild tightening; the question is whether there’s enough time and money for Marshall to make her case in the next few months, or whether Burr can ride the national environment to another term.

In lieu of an AM digest, let’s set the stage for what should be yet another dramatic day in the Alaska Republican primary saga.

Change Gonna Come: Since Wednesday, the scoreboard has been frozen like this:

438 of 438 Precincts Reporting

Candidate	Votes	Percent
Lisa Murkowski	45,359	49.10%
Joe Miller	47,027	50.90%

That will all change later today once the folks at the Alaska Division of Elections begin counting their first round of absentee ballots. According to The Hill, 7000 absentees are in the kitty, waiting to be counted today. Given that roughly 70% of the ballots cast on election day were in the Republican primary, we should see the needle move by around 5000 votes. The Anchorage Daily News, however, isn’t getting a straight figure from the DoE, while a Murkowski spokesbot claims that the number of votes counted today will be closer to 15,000 (out of over 25,000 currently uncounted). In any case, we’ll keep you updated as soon as the results are posted.

Paranoid: True to form, Joe Miller is calling for armed guards — or Alaska State Troopers, to be precise — to protect the regional elections offices from Lisa Murkowski’s legion of iPhone-wielding, Diebold-hacking “scrutineers”. The DoE says that Miller’s paranoia is unfounded, saying that there’s no way that NRSC/Murkowski consultant Mike Roman (who also worked on behalf of Norm Coleman during the ’08 Minnesota recount episode) could have tampered with any e-ballots. Murkowski is more or less calling Miller unhinged:

“I believe in our nation’s democratic process, it’s the envy of the world. I have complete faith in our system and I am astounded that Mr. Miller continues to make blatantly false accusations that there is something nefarious happening. Observers from both sides are at regional election offices to ensure that Alaskans get a fair vote count. For someone who wants to be Alaska’s Republican nominee for Senate, Mr. Miller is certainly afraid of Republicans,” Senator Murkowski said.

Burning Down the House: You just have to love how candid Joe Miller is in his radicalism. From a FOX Business News interview late last week (of course!):

“But out of the gate, Joe, what do you start with? Healthcare?” said Asman.

“Oh, absolutely. Defund it. I mean a repeal would be perfect but obviously that would get vetoed. So defund everything. Get rid of the socialist aspects of government, not just in health care but the other entitlement areas that are driving us into insolvency,” Miller said.

Miller went on to say that Congress should have the “courage to shut down the government,” if necessary, to eliminate government programs.

On anyone’s list, the entitlement programs that could drive the nation to “insolvency” in the decades ahead are topped by Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, which make up about 40 percent of the federal budget. […]

Miller has said he wants an “orderly transition” away from Social Security, to “privatize” or “personalize” it, while not reducing benefits for anyone who is “currently dependent” on the program.

Referring to Social Security, he told the Anchorage Daily News that “I think in the long run the answer is to get the government out of it, to privatize it.”

Regarding Medicare, he also wants an “orderly transition” to get the government out of that program as well because “The government has broken everything that it’s had its finger in.”

That’s Joe Miller, Pension Killer to his friends.

With a Little Help From My Friends: Here’s a refreshing change of pace — the Politico devotes two pages of text to Democrat Scott McAdams. The article puts the spotlight on the big support that McAdams is getting from Mark Begich, who’s quickly becoming McAdams’ biggest backer in the state. Begich, who not only helped talk McAdams into the race when no other Democrat of note was willing to take the plunge against Murkowski, has been sending staff and fundraising assistance to McAdams, and spent all of last week shopping the Mayor of Sitka around Anchorage.

Politico notes that Alaska Democrats had tried to lure former state legislator Walter Hensley into the race before McAdams jumped in just before the filing deadline, but couldn’t get Hensley to commit to a race against his “longtime friend and ally” Murkowski. There’s now some rumbling that Hensley would be interested in running against Miller, but that boat has clearly sailed. McAdams is standing firm, and the state party has lined up behind him. Begich sums it up:

“There’s no trade-in. There’s no swapping,” Begich said. “And part of the hesitation is that they don’t know Scott. But that’s what campaigns are all about. I didn’t know Joe Miller a few months ago.” […]

“This guy put his name on the line when nobody else would,” Begich said. “That takes a lot of guts and a lot of ability, in my view.”

Meanwhile, McAdams also secured the endorsement of national AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, who clearly liked what he had to see after Begich facilitated a meeting between the two. The Mudflats has the video.