"Lisa Murkowski reelected by write-ins"

Lisa Murkowski

Incumbent Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska has won reelection this Wednesday through a write-in campaign. Murkowski, who ran as an Independent, defeated her two opponents, Republican and Tea Party favorite Joe Miller and Democrat Scott McAdams, for the Senate seat. Ever since the Mid-term elections two weeks ago, the ballots for the Alaska Senate race were still being counted. Recent counts showed that Murkowski had a 10,000 vote lead over her closest opponent Joe Miller. The Associated Press then declared this afternoon that Murkowski had won reelection. According to the Alaska Division of Elections, the final count showed Murkowski with 92,715 write-in votes, with Miller following with 90,448 votes. An additional 8,153 votes counted for Murkowski have been challenged by the Miller campaign. However, due to the senator's substantial lead already, it is unlikely that those ballots will make any difference. Though ballots are still being counted, Murkowski flew from Washington D.C. to Anchorage, Alaska to prepare for her victory celebration. Miller has not, however, conceded the race to Murkowski yet. In a statement, Miller said his campaign was prepared to review the vote records in "select precincts" Thursday and possibly Saturday, which Miller could then ask for a state wide recount. Despite Miller's delaying, the state Republican party seems ready to accept Murkowski's win and appear to be unwilling to offer Miller any more support. Murkowski had previously been a Republican but lost the Republican nomination to Miller. Undeterred, Murkowski stated that she intended to run as an Independent candidate. Since she had no endorsement of a major political party, Murkowski's campaign decided she would be write-in candidate. Being a write-in candidate meant that Murkowski would be only get votes if supporters wrote her name on the ballots in the write-in section. Polls had shown that the race between Murkowski and Miller would be close, with Murkowski holding a slight lead.


The link to the Politico article is below
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1110/45290.html