Posted on 07/30/2013 7:51:38 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Alaska should be a top tier pick up opportunity for Senate Republicans next year...but their top choice of a candidate is Sarah Palin. 36% of GOP primary voters in the state say they'd like Palin to be their standard bearer against Mark Begich to 26% for Mead Treadwell, 15% for Dan Sullivan, and 12% for Joe Miller. Palin leads mostly based on her strength with 'very conservative' voters where she gets 43% to 20% for Treadwell, but she also leads him 28/25 with moderates.
The problem for Republicans with a Palin candidacy is that even though she is in good standing with the party base, voters overall don't like her at all. She has a 39/58 favorability rating, including 33/64 with key independent voters. There's a lot of division about how strong her ties to the state even are anymore- only 47% of voters consider her to still be an Alaskan while 46% don't, and 37% of voters in the state think it would be more appropriate for her to run for the Senate from Arizona to 41% who say Alaska.
It all adds up to a 52/40 lead for Begich in a hypothetical match up with Palin. He leads by 21 points with independents, 56/35, and takes 20% of the Republican vote. It's a slight improvement for Palin from February when we found her trailing Begich 54/38, but she's very much in a hole.
The best Republican hope for this seat is Lieutenant Governor Mead Treadwell and the good news for the GOP is that if Palin sits it out he, and not 2010 nominee Joe Miller, is the next choice of the party base. In a three way primary Treadwell gets 33% to 25% for Sullivan and 24% for Miller. And in a head to head with Miller, Treadwell leads 53/30. Even among Republican primary voters Miller has a dreadful 26/53 favorability rating.
Treadwell still trails Begich, but only by a 44/40 margin. That's narrowed from 47/39 on our February poll. Treadwell has a +6 favorability rating at 35/29 and has room to grow with 36% of voters still not knowing enough about him to have formed an opinion. Alaskans are closely divided on Begich with 42% approving and 41% disapproving of him. Begich's biggest complication though is probably how voters in the state feel about Barack Obama- just 39% approve of the job he's doing to 57% who disapprove. Begich does lead Sullivan (46/39) and Miller (55/32) should either of them slip through the primary.
It definitely looks like the action in Alaska next year will be the Senate race. Governor Sean Parnell actually has approval numbers that could suggest some vulnerability- 44% give him good marks to 42% who disapprove. But he still has wide leads in hypothetical match ups with a quartet of potential Democratic opponents- he's up 13 on Ethan Berkowitz at 51/38, 19 on Bill Wielechowski at 52/33, 20 on Les Gara at 53/33, and 21 on Hollis French at 54/33. Parnell also looks pretty solid against a primary challenge from Bill Walker, leading him 60/22.
The Alaska House race is a similar story- Don Young isn't terribly popular with a 47/43 approval rating but he still leads potential Democratic challenger Matt Moore by 28 points at 56/28.
Is she officially running yet?
That’s what Alaska’s GOP are hoping she would do...
I must admit that I’m not a big supporter of Palin, but I think it would be a good idea for her to run for Senate.
I think she’ll be a much more powerful force in the Senate then as a commentator. Because she is so well known, she will be on the Sunday Morning shows almost every weekend. (Just as McCain is now)
With the greater visibility, she will have the opportunity to articulate her positions. People who are undecided about her will have an opportunity to see her unfiltered.
We’ll get to see once and for all if she’s got the stuff to be POTUS.
I’m looking forward to seeing how she would do.
You can read into that all you want but the bottom line is will she run? That is yet to be seen.
The Repubs and Demodummies are deathly afraid of her and her capability to see right through their BS, then speak her mind that everyone can understand. The great thing about her is, given the athourity SHE has the backbone to make changes they may not like.
RE: I think it would be a good idea for her to run for Senate.
As long as the RINO Lisa Murkowski gets replaced, I’m all for it.
I’d love Alaska to have Palin and Joe Miller as senators.
I agree and hope she wins nomination and is elected.
That being said, her inability or unwillingness (you must pick one) to endure and overcome a bunch of hack journalists and vicious state bureaucrats from the backwater that is Alaska by at least finishing her term as governor does not bode well.
Her support of Karen Handel here in Georgia is another issue, but minor in comparison.
She is better than a democrat, and far ahead of crackhead RINO Murkowski, but that isn’t saying much.
I agree 100%. This is her best place to be. She’d be a great member of our growing conservative caucus. It would give her a real platform and demonstrate her seriousness. As a commentator, she is mostly preaching to the choir. She needs to be in a position where she can actually influence the real debate. Paul, Lee and Cruz are much more significant than Palin at this juncture...at least outside of primary election support, where Palin has been a powerful force with results.
There is no way she is leaving Todd with the kids to go to Washington for 6 years. Now 2 terms of 4 years each is a different story.
Her decision to come down to the Continental United States to help create and lead a conservative movement was a great stroke for conservatives, and led the GOP to one of it's historic victories in 2010, victories that will serve us for many years to come.
In 2012 she was the only good news as the GOPe served itself a disaster in Romney and managed to lose the Senate, Palin gave us our only Senate seat pickup and gave us Ted Cruz in Texas.
Her decision to shift her energies to the national battleground and a national movement, has served us well.
MurKOWski getting re-elected was almost as disappointing as Harry Reid getting re-elected. Miller needs to start with something less high profile like Fairbanks city council. Or even dog catcher.
TAKE THAT YOU SARAH HATERS!!!
I’d like to see her run.
Bet she won’t count on a Murkowski endorsement.. Madam ‘write-in’. Sure would make an interesting pair.
Disregard this PPP poll. Leans left. Nothing to see here.
Move along.
I would like her to run in order to see how or if she can turn around those independent voters who do not like her, along with the establishment Republicans who feel the same.
I've concluded that anyone who makes this statement is either willfully ignorant or mentally defective. In your case, which is it?
Ooh oh... I wanna see how this convo turns out.
Umm...you did notice she's running 12 points behind the Democratic Senate Incumbent in a general election matchup, right?
So someone that is supposedly a viable Presidential candidate is 12 points behind in a poll in her home state?
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