Early results from the hotly-contested Alaska Senate race show “write-in” leading the results with close to 40% of the total counted. That’s good news for Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R), who banked on a write-in campaign to return her to the Senate after she lost the GOP nomination to tea partier Joe Miller.
But the result is less good news for political junkies, who — due to the rules in Alaska — will have to wait an extremely long time to find out who actually won the race as state officials begin counting all those write-in ballots.
As the Anchorage Daily News reports, the results as they stand now mean “it won’t be clear for weeks at least how many wrote in Murkowski’s name, and how many did it properly enough to be counted.”
Still the result does make it clear that Miller, whose triumph in the primary was heralded as both a victory for the tea party and Sarah Palin, wasn’t able to keep his post-primary momentum he in the general election rematch with Murkowski.
Democratic candidate Scott McAdams, who supporters thought might rise to the top as Republicans split between Miller and Murkowski, is trailing Miller and the write-in option in the polls.
As they say, it ain’t over till it’s over — and in Alaska, it definitely ain’t over.
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