Lisa Murkowski Faces Her Fate
Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) faces a make-or-break test of her absentee ballot program today as AK officials begin tallying a round of absentee votes that appear likely to put her farther behind her conservative rival.Murkowski trailed attorney Joe Miller (R) by 1,668 votes, or 1.8%, after Election Day, though there are still more than 25K votes to count. More than 15K of those are absentee ballots and another 9K are questioned ballots. The state must also count nearly 700 early votes. AK will tally a little more than 15K votes today, including nearly 11K absentee ballots from across the Last Frontier.
That makes up about two-thirds of the total number of absentee ballots. And while Murkowski is holding out hope that her absentee ballot program will favor her, taking a look at where those ballots are coming from suggest Miller will be the beneficiary.
The largest chunk of votes will come from state legislative districts in the Southeastern part of the state, around Juneau and Ketchikan. While Murkowski won the area, she didn't win by a wide margin. If the absentee ballots favor Murkowski by as much as voters did on Election Day, she would net just 25 votes out of the 4,381 to be counted in those 9 districts.
Murkowski would net more votes, about 114, in and around Anchorage, where her base is strong. She won 12 of 15 legislative districts wholly or partly contained within the city, some with as much as 60%.
But not only are those small amounts insufficient to help Murkowski pull out a win, they're also dwarfed by the absentee ballot crop Miller is likely to reap in the Mat-Su Valley, where ex-AK Gov. Sarah Palin's (R) political base lives.
Miller won the area by wide margins, and if ballots break today like they did last week, he would net an additional 489 votes over Murkowski. Murkowski lost all 4 legislative districts in the Mat-Su Valley by more than 20 points, giving Miller a chance to virtually lock up the election by increasing his lead.
Miller would also net 134 votes out of the Fairbanks area, where he outperformed Murkowski by wide margins. Murkowski has another base far out in the AK bush, but it's not going to be counted today, according to a spokesperson for the AK Board of Elections. Those ballots, from the far northern districts of the state, haven't arrived at election centers yet.
What's worse for Murkowski, there aren't many of them. While there are more than 2K ballots coming in from the Mat-Su Valley, there are only 443 from the 4 legislative districts in which Murkowski topped two-thirds of the vote.
Murkowski still has a chance to shove Miller aside with a strong absentee ballot performance. But national GOPers questioned her decision-making during the race, and many wonder whether the program she ran to get her voters ballots was effective. So far, they haven't been impressed.
The votes counted today are likely to seal Murkowski's fate. If Murkowski loses ground after so many votes have been counted, she'd be resting her faith on about 2 dozen early votes and a little more than 5K questioned ballots. That would present her with virtually insurmountable odds in the GOP primary. Results from the 8/24 primary, by legislative district, are after the jump. The results, by legislative district, of AK's Tuesday primary:
To get a better sense of where the district lines lie, check out the statewide map, the Anchorage Bowl, the Matanuska-Susitna (Mat-Su) region, the Fairbanks area, Kenai and the Richardson Highway.
Dist. Murk Mill Area 1 57.9 42.1 Ketchikan 2 56.7 43.3 Wrangell 3 67.4 32.6 Juneau 4 52.0 48.0 Juneau 5 60.5 39.5 Haines 6 47.6 52.4 Beaver 7 45.1 54.9 Fairbanks 8 49.4 50.6 Fairbanks 9 47.7 52.3 Fairbanks 10 46.8 53.2 Fairbanks 11 35.1 64.9 North Pole 12 39.6 60.4 Valdez 13 39.7 60.3 Palmer 14 35.4 64.6 Wasilla 15 36.7 63.3 Wasilla 16 39.3 60.7 Chugiak/Matsu 17 46.2 53.8 Eagle River 18 39.5 60.5 Anchorage 19 49.1 50.9 Anchorage 20 51.5 48.5 Anchorage 21 51.3 48.7 Anchorage 22 53.6 46.4 Anchorage 23 62.2 37.8 Anchorage 24 55.0 45.0 Anchorage 25 57.2 42.8 Anchorage 26 60.5 39.5 Anchorage 27 57.2 42.8 Anchorage 28 56.9 43.1 Anchorage 29 49.0 51.0 Anchorage 30 53.5 46.5 Anchorage 31 54.3 45.7 Anchorage 32 54.6 45.4 Anchorage 33 42.6 57.4 Kenai 34 36.5 63.5 Nikiski 35 46.3 53.7 Homer 36 48.5 51.5 Kodiak 37 74.1 25.9 Dillingham 38 76.9 23.1 Bethel 39 71.8 28.2 Nome 40 66.8 33.2 Kotzebue Total 49.1 50.9 Margin +1,668
The number of ballots left over (Note: "Abs" is absentee ballots. "EVs" are early votes. And QBs mean questioned ballots:
Dist. Abs EVs QBs 1 414 1 212 2 525 1 104 3 521 18 439 4 313 83 324 5 436 6 106 6 294 27 208 7 266 36 338 8 270 18 335 9 202 23 242 10 203 13 199 11 249 18 294 12 460 4 85 13 662 55 474 14 420 105 370 15 496 60 293 16 698 21 207 17 594 9 218 18 409 3 149 19 428 5 244 20 201 3 132 21 377 5 228 22 254 9 202 23 397 21 264 24 303 6 315 25 265 10 242 26 447 7 281 27 361 4 240 28 502 5 194 29 263 6 173 30 372 20 309 31 481 17 279 32 771 18 205 33 675 1 177 34 853 0 160 35 566 0 216 36 339 0 105 37 165 0 120 38 88 0 123 39 84 22 129 40 106 3 182 Total 15703 663 9117