[Republican Wildcat]

Has Palin actually become this unpopular in Alaska, or is this poll completely out of line with reality? Anyone in Alaska that can shed light on this?

[diogenes ghost]

I spent six weeks in AK last year during the run-up to the Moocowski election.

I found little support for Palin, and R's in general.

Great place, but the politics is heavily invested in entitlements.

[Hot Tabasco]

or is this poll completely out of line with reality?

500 likely voters? Hell, pick a town of eskimos living off food stamps and see what kind of response you'd get..........

[RedwM]

Yeah. If you want your Murky money or some such.

[labette]

I would have to ask, what has changed since a REAL poll in 2008?

McCain and Palin spanked the O team 192,631 to 122,485.
That’s in the neighborhood of 59% to 37% win.

[capt. norm]

We have to remember that Politico is a liberal-dominated website designed to lure conservatives into thinking they are, somehow, offering unbiased info when the exact opposite is their real mission.

The leopards think they have been able to change their spots".

[vetvetdoug]

Politico=Journolist. Politico has no credibility anymore.

[ansel12]

Palin had a 93% approval rating, an 89% approval rating, and sustained approval ratings in the 80s.

I think that during a campaign, Palin will carry Alaska.

[Minus_The_Bear]

Alaskan is a welfare state. Every Alaskan receives around $7,000 per year from the oil companies.

Palin had a %88 favorable rating before her nomination as VP.

Then she was trashed and had to resign because of all the investigations.

Joe Miller lost his Senate race in 2010 because Palin endorsed him in Alaska. Murkowski then ran against Palin and Miller. People turned out to vote against "the Palin candidate".

Palin would not be able to win her home state much like Al Gore in 2000.

Palin fans don't want to hear this because they don't care about the future of the country. They just want to start a fanclub.

[Man from Oz]

My sweetheart lives in Anchorage and I consider her and the friends of hers whom I have met to be good, level headed people. They don’t like Sarah because they see her as an opportunist. I have gingerly debated the obvious points and legit experience that I see in Sarah.. There is hope.

To answer this question... I am not surprised of the results but I would believe the majority of those polled live in Anchorage... Like other cities it is left tilted...

I am headed up there on Saturday for 3 weeks.. I will keep my ears open.

My two cents...

[LibLieSlayer]

This poll was paid for by Pocaro Communications... disclosed on the pollsters website... and Mike Pocaro is one of the republican murkowski bunch... and one of the good old boys that had clients that felt the sting of Governor Palin. He has a local political radio show... was a past Director of Alaska's PUBLIC BROADCASTING SYSTEM. Every officer on the board of this company is tied in with networks, Disney, BIG OIL, ROLLING STONE MAGAZINE, Marine Services companies, Shell, Phillips 66 and every other corporate parasite that Palin took on a Governor. Ask yourself why a company like this... why would they pay for this poll? Could it be that they needed to shape opinion to reinforce the lie that Palin is hated? Could this be lisa murkowski payback... it was after all... her daddy that Palin beat! Come on people... do a little research and THINK! Check it out for yourself and tell me what you think.

LLS

[Caipirabob]

This is perhaps the most incoherent and incomplete article depicting poll results that I have ever read.

Figures, she's probably beating him by 20 points in reality.

[ardara]

Things could not be going better for Sarah.And the opposition still will not talk about the issues.

[Bryan24]

The mainstream media are not here to report, they exist to shape opinion.

[Cheetahcat]

Yeah right and I have some tropical Alaska sea shore land for sale,The Alaskans I know HATE Obama!

[KamperKen]

Laughable and pitiful effort on Politico’s part and not worthy of any further discussion.

[GR_Jr.]

Good grief, will it ever end? With Obama’s anti-drilling, anti-energy policies, do they really expect us to believe a state like Alaska whose economy soley depends on drilling and energy would vote for Obama????

I don’t buy it.

[Friendofgeorge]

Why would you even post such a pack of lies? Have you got &#$% for brains.

We do not need to talk with anybody from Alaska

to know that this is CRAPOLA...WAKE UP MAN

[ROCKLOBSTER]

Obama beating Palin in Alaska

Well of course he is. Everyone knows he's a misogynist.

Remember what he did to Hillary.

[Zhang Fei]

This is Hays Research on the 2010 Senatorial race, along with actual dates:

The actual results? Murkowski 39%, Miller 35%, McAdams 23%. Bottom line is that Hays appears to oversample Democratic voters.

[FredZarguna]

Actually, the study was conducted by the Hays -- not Hayes -- Research Group. It might be nice if The Politico actually troubled themselves to check the spelling of their sources.

One of the few aspects of methodology revealed in the poll was the "likely voter" selection mechanism. Usually this is extremely complex and involves screening questions in addition to voting patterns. In this study only one metric is used to determine likelihood: did the respondent vote in 2 of the last 4 statewide elections? Given the number of 0bama voters and energy level in 2008, and the number of weirdo voters necessary for Murkowski to pull off her write-in campaign in 2010, I would say this is probably a very suspect measure in a statewide poll of AK, but to be fair sometimes simpler is better. [I don't know of any major pollsters who just use frequency alone as a measure of likelihood, however...]

The study does not provide any breakdown of self-identification of R/I/D, which is a red flag. It is also a red flag that 34% of respondents feel very strongly about backing 0bama. That is very high, and coupled with the fact that they don't identify their sample self-identification would lead one to believe they are very strongly over-selecting Democrats: among R/I voters who favor 0bama in unbiased polls, his "strong" numbers are very poor.

The Hays Research Group web page says nothing about sampling methodology, except their non-response bias mitigation technique. However, they do not indicate what their final nonresponse number was, which is also a red flag.

Given that the sample is small, nonresponse bias would be a serious issue if present. (It's always a serious issue, but for a sample this small it could make the results nothing more than noise.)

Given they don't really release any of the internals or methodology, I'd say it's probably crap. The most important lesson to take away from this is that you're going to see a lot of very silly polling results released between now and next November. But you will not see any silly ones which favor Republicans, certainly none that favor Conservatives. That in itself is a selection-bias indicator.

You can also take away from this, as Dennis Green might say (of The Politico): "They are who we thought they were."