Posted on 08/25/2010 10:35:46 AM PDT by Signalman
Update 1: Turnout is extremely heavy for an off-year election. There will be twice as many voters in this primary as the presidential election year of 2010. GOP voters outnumber Democrat voters 3-1.
Update 2: Joe Miller wins Alaska primary in a political earthquake that will be discussed fully in the coming days. Right Pundits calls Miller the winner over Murkowski at 1:40am PT.
Update 3: There are about 16,000 absentee ballots that are not counted. Murkowski would need to win 60% of them to close the gap.
Update 4: With 429 of 438 precincts counted, Joe Miller is still winning 51.09% to 48.91%. 2,000 votes separate the candidates out of 90,000 cast. We expect that absentee ballots will favor Murkowski, but the gap will be too wide to close. Out of the 16,000 requested, only 8,000 were returned.
Joe Miller has been a heavy underdog in pre-election polls, trailing the senator by 20-30 points. Nobody thought this race would be close.
In fact, the mainstream media has been using the Alaska primary challenge from Miller as evidence that Sarah Palin’s endorsements are not all that useful. Palin endorsed Joe Miller several weeks ago. The press assumed that Lisa would beat Miller easily as the polls predicted, which fed a certain group-think that is comforting to liberals.
Even if the sitting senator manages to come back from the vote deficit, any victory for her will be razor thin. And that is appearing more and more unlikely as the evening progresses. In reality Palin is the most powerful voice in politics today. Her endorsements generate interest, campaign donations, grassroots support, and results at the ballot box.
The meme that Palin endorsements are irrelevant began surfacing in early August and became an oft repeated mantra by liberal television commentators in the mainstream media. If the Alaska senate results hold up for Joe Miller, the former governor of Alaska will have shut them up permanently.
Right Pundits will stay up late to give you the final Alaska primary results for Joe Miller just as soon as we can make an early call officially. We are almost there. Even as this brief piece was written, Joe Miller extended his lead slightly while more precincts in the state were counted. The winner of the Alaska primary appears to be Joe Miller, and Sarah Power will be undeniable even to her critics. We will make the call official soon, assuming it is warranted.
So what is known about Joe Miller’s biography? He has eight kids and a game wife named Kathleen Miller. He grew up in Kansas but moved west to Alaska at the age of 16. He holds a law degree and various positions of local authority in the judiciary, including that of U.S. Magistrate Judge in Fairbanks Alaska. He earned a Bronze Star for bravery in the Gulf War after graduating high in his class from West Point.
What an election result! Reader comments welcome.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Another RINO bites the dust !
Just heard that there are 16,000 absentee ballots.
Any worries, in AK, about that?
This may be premature. I hope Miller wins, but with something like 8000 absentee ballots to count and Murkowski’s Machine, it isn’t a done deal.
Happy to see such a stand up guy blow off Daddy's Little Girl.
IIRC half have aleady been counted/returned.
I’m waiting for an offical annoucement,
Joe Miller,
Murkowski to concede
even though I believe Joe Miller has won it.
Woohoo! I just love it because the media hates it. Palin won another one!
That magnificent bast**d Karl Rove seems to think it could be September 8th before the results are official.
Unless Murkowski concedes before then.
16 requested, 8 returned.
I hope he holds on.
It would be a huge win.
Murkowski: "Get Christine Gregoire on the phone, stat!"
And it couldn't be sweeter than to be an underdog in Pain's state where even the MSM had admitted it was her endorsement for this political unknown against the incumbent.
Even with the cumulative destruction of the nation by Liberals that grows daily there are moments like this for real hope.
Highly unlikely.
I just checked the AK elections homepage:
http://www.elections.alaska.gov/
and it still shows 429/438 precints counted. What’s taking so long?
The MSM is totally missing or ignoring this...
...what they and the Dems are seeing is the tide slowly going out, so they go out to investigate...
...only to be engulfed by the coming mega-tsunami general election.
I keep saying this, but a good investment idea is in the companies that make "Hello, my name is...." nametags, because Congress will need them this year like never before.
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