Alaska polling "shows state's two iconic Republican incumbents in real jeopardy at ballot box."

[DeepModem Mom]

WP political blog, "The Fix," by Chris Cillizza
Alaska: A Target-Rich Environment for Democrats?

New polling out of Alaska shows that the state's two iconic Republican incumbents are in real jeopardy at the ballot box next year. The survey, conducted by Research 2000 for the liberal website DailyKos and in the field from Dec. 3-6, puts both Rep. Don Young and Sen. Ted Stevens behind their potential Democratic challengers.

In the Senate race, Stevens trails Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich, 47 percent to 41 percent, while Young is behind state Rep. Ethan Berkowitz 49 percent to 42 percent. The numbers beyond the head-to-head matchups are no less discouraging for the Republicans. Just 29 percent of the sample viewed Stevens favorably as compared to 58 percent who saw him in an unfavorable light. Young didn't fare much better with a 40 fav/54 unfav score. Berkowitz is already in the race and running against Young while Begich -- the son of late Alaska Rep. Nick Begich -- continues to mull a challenge to Stevens.

The problems with the Republican Party in Alaska are myriad and well documented, revolving around a lingering pay-to-play scandal engineered by an oil and gas company named Veco Corp. Both Young and Stevens have found themselves embroiled in the scandal and neither has handled the situation as well as they could have, given their decades of political experience. (Young picked a fight with the Anchorage Daily News recently, paying for ad space to attack its coverage of him.)

The implosion of the Alaska Republican party has been years in the making, however, as voters have clearly tired of politics as usual in the Last Frontier....

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/thefix/2007/12/alaska_a_targetrich_environmen.html?hpid=news-col-blog

[madfloridian]

1. I remember when they laughed....

at the chairman for putting resources there in Alaska. And for hiring a 2nd political director.

[snowbear]

4. Obama is the **only** candidate in either party with an office here!

He is following Howard Dean's "50 state strategy" according to the the director heading off his hqtrs here in Anchorage.

We haven't had any telephone polling yet here, but the NBC did an on-line (one vote per IP) vote from 6:30 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. last night -- and Obama won for the Democratic Party, Paul for the Republicans.

[DeepModem Mom]

5. Interesting -- thanks for reporting, larissa! nt

[CTLawGuy]

10. another reason why we need Obama as the nominee

We need a 50 state presidential campaign, not an 18 state Kerry campaign (no offense to Kerry intended). We could find we had support we never knew existed. All we have to do is try to look for it.

[babylonsister]

2. Rec'd, because I want to see the slime in AK go down, and this is a

big story. With other rethug slime possibly following who might be involved.

[Tarheel_Dem]

3. Music to my ears.....

k&r

[ingac70]

6. This makes me feel all warm inside!

:D

[reggie the dog]

7. great news

For quite some time Alaska has been a Republican stronghold. This is great.

[last_texas_dem]

8. Interesting article; thanks for the post

I was hoping the elder Murkowski's unpopularity (and the general dissatisfaction with the 'pugs in '06) would be enough to help Tony Knowles beat Lisa Murkowski in the '04 Senate race or Palin in the '06 Governor's race... perhaps the scandals surrounding Ted "Series of Tubes" Stevens and Don "Bridge to Nowhere" Young will be enough for the Dems to make some progress in the state next year.

[shenmue]

9. Yay!

Another state beginning to recover from Republican-itis! :patriot: