Nate Silver takes a measure of the situations in Alaska and Delaware where two tea party candidates may lose momentum with Republicans running as write-ins.
Mike Castle, the candidate who shouldn't have lost to the Delaware witch, and Lisa Murkowski who lost to Joe Miller, a Harvard tea partyer (I've been looking forward to writing that description!) in Alaska, may get themselves successfully written into the Senate. The numbers seem to be on their side.
Representative Mike Castle, the moderate Delaware Republican who was upended by Christine O’Donnell in the primary, is also said to be considering a write-in bid. Although both Mr. Castle and his advisers have characterized a bid as unlikely, his interest is serious enough that he’s commissioned a poll, according to reporting by Politico.
As for Lisa Murkowski, she's already made up her mind to run in spite of the notion that no one would remember how to spell her name.
While insulting the electorate is perhaps not the wisest strategy, Mr. Miller was apparently not alone in wondering if Alaskans who might like to vote for Ms. Murkowski would be able to spell her name. The Times has a response.
As my colleagues William Yardley and Carl Hulse reported before Ms. Murkowski decided to run despite not being on the ballot, her aides had spent time “exploring what variations of her name — Lisa? Senator Murkowski? Lisa M.? — would be acceptable to election officials in a write-in campaign.”
They were no doubt reassured to hear that Gail Fenumiai, the state elections director, stated that any ballot where voter intent could be discerned would be counted. ...NYT
Nate Silver had already decided she has a real chance.
I discussed Ms. Murkowski’s chances chances last week and came to the conclusion that her write-in bid had a legitimate chance at succeeding. Our forecasting model — going off some thin polling and some tenuous assumptions, puts those chances at 17 percent, which seems reasonable enough.
Very reasonable.
Okay, Democrats. We can officially start to worry on behalf of Democratic candidates in Alaska and Delaware. How would Castle's presence on the ballot affect Democratic candidate Chris Coons' chances? Well, popular Republican moderate, Mike Castle, could well draw a bunch of Democrats away from voting Democratic.
Mr. Castle could receive a decent number of Democratic votes. Polling that pitted him head-to-head in a (now hypothetical) one-on-one matchup against the Democratic nominee, Chris Coons, had shown him getting about one-third of the Democratic vote. On the other hand, Mr. Coons has perhaps become a little bit more entrenched than the Democrat in Alaska, Scott McAdams, simply because — in contast to Mr. McAdams — Mr. Coons had become the overwhelming favorite to win his race the moment that Ms. O’Donnell became the nominee. There may be an element of loss aversion among Democratic supporters of Mr. Coons, who could be less likely to support Mr. Castle in practice than they might have been in theory.
So how is Democratic candidate for the Senate, Scott McAdams, doing now in Alaska? And what's the best we can hope for with a Democrat up against both Murkowski (good old corrupt Alaska Republican) and Miller (tea)?
Well, you can pretty much forget about Democrat McAdams.
...Given the number of conservative voters in Alaska, it’s hard to see Mr. Miller finishing with less than about 40 percent of the vote, which would create a higher burden for Ms. Murkowski to meet. She could win if the support of the Democrat, Scott McAdams, were to collapse, with a likely result of about Ms. Murkowski 41, Mr. Miller 40, and Mr. McAdams 19. But it’s a more uphill climb.
We can be forgiven for wishing the Dems had a better chance in those two states, but I'm glad the two Republicans are running against the tea partyers. Democracy is having two small healthy moments at a time when it's mostly on life support.
