Alaska US Senate Race: Sullivan v. Begich, elections

Election Year 2014 will more likely than not produce significant gains for the Republican Party.

The Democratic Party is defending one of seven vulnerable US Senate incumbents in Alaska: Mark Begich. In Alaska's August primary, three Republican candidates fought for the nomination: former Attorney General and Alaska Commissioner of Natural Resources Dan Sullivan against second-time TEA Party challenger judge Joe Miller and Lieutenant Governor Mead Treadwell. Before the primary, Democratic incumbent Mark Begich was doing fairly well, polling ahead of the three potential challengers in hypothetical head-to-head match-ups.

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When Sullivan pulled through the primary on August 19, the numbers starting shifting back to a GOP pick-up in Alaska. The latest five polls have consistently shown Sullivan to be gaining and keeping the upper ground against Begich. There is no reason to be surprised about this. Alaska is a deep red state. Sarah Palin, the standard-bearer for the TEA Party movement, won a Republican primary for governor by defeating a family name incumbent (Murkowski), then pushed past the Democratic opposition. She ran against the Establishment as well as the liberals, and won. Alaska is a rugged territory, difficult for polling, but not difficult for identifying conservative values. Even when one considers the prior US Senator, Republican King of Earmarks, Ted Stevens (may he rest in peace), Alaska is big on limited government, and a major Republican stronghold. Former US Senator Ted Stevens was the longest serving Republican US Senator, and his tenure and experience in the upper chamber secured federal dollars for his state, including "The Bridge to Nowhere." In his last election, 2008, Stevens was caught up in a corruption scandal, later convicted on seven counts of failing to report gifts, including renovations to his Alaska home. Even though convicted barely two weeks before election day, Stevens determined to continue campaigning. The political timing for the case could not have been better for the Democratic Party that year, and for Mark Begich. A candidate running in a bad year for his party, plus a felony conviction, dragged down Steven's otherwise certain win. After Stevens' indictment and conviction, investigations into the case determined that he had been unjustly targeted, and a federal judge threw out the case in April, 2009. The judge throwing out the convictions spared little in his criticism: In nearly 25 years on the bench, I've never seen anything approaching the mishandling and misconduct that I've seen in this case. By then, though, it was too late. Begich had already squeaked by against Stevens by less than four thousand votes, beating the longest-serving Republicans US Senator by one percent, then was sworn in and seated in Washington.   What does Stevens' untimely (and unjust loss) have to do with 2014?  Stevens did not deserve to lose. If not for the kangaroo court which had unfairly tarnished Stevens, the mayor of Anchorage would have never won the seat. Maybe Sullivan's victory will vindicate Stevens and Alaska voters this year. One conclusion is clear from these facts: Begich never belonged in Washington, and only won because of the anti-Bush, anti-GOP animus which hurt all candidates running under that banner, plus severe ethical lapses in criminal justice, which incidentally would become the defining standard of the Obama Administration for the next six years. Stevens could have run for reelection and taken back his seat. Sadly, the former US Senator meet an untimely demise in a helicopter crash in 2010.   The hopes for a GOP comeback in Alaska, however, did not die with Stevens. Six years after his electoral victory, Begich is the embattled incumbent, running away from a felonious President and corruption Administration. He has to explain to voters why he supported the unpopular Affordable Care Act, the Stimulus, and endorsed the malfeasant executives of the Obama Administration. He has to explain his absenteeism in the US Senate, and his weak efforts to promote the Keystone Pipeline. Like the embattled Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (who lost in 2004 to a Republican newcomer), Begich has  attempted to play a conservative-centrist favorite son in Alaska, but big government liberal in Washington. His record is catching up with him.   So has Dan Sullivan, the Republican challenger who will likely become the next US Senator from Alaska. In fact, the former Attorney General and Bush Administration official has already caught up and overtaken the former Anchorage mayor, and more, recent polling predictions affirm that not only are Republicans more likely to retake the US Senate, they will accomplish this reversal with a win in Alaska.