Alaska Politics Blog : Republicans still well on top in new governor's race polling

Alaska Politics Blog

This is the place to talk about Alaska politics, state, local, national. Public life in the Last Frontier has rarely been more interesting -- a full slate of federal and state elections, the influence of former Gov. Sarah Palin, the usual hardball Alaska politics. Come here for news, tidbits and information, and join the discussion. We encourage lively debate, but please keep it civil and stay on point. Don't use profanity, make crude comments or attack other posters. Posts that violate the Terms of Use will be deleted. Repeat offenders will lose their ability to post comments.

Contributors

Sean Cockerham

Sean Cockerham writes about Alaska state politics. He's worked for the ADN in Anchorage and Juneau, covered the legislature for the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, and covered Washington state politics for the Tacoma News Tribune. E-mail Sean at scockerham@adn.com

Kyle Hopkins

Kyle Hopkins covers rural affairs, general assignments and politics for the ADN. He covered the 2006 campaign for governor, has blogged extensively about Alaska politics, covered Anchorage city government and was a reporter based in the Mat-Su. He grew up in Southeast Alaska and previously wrote for the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner and Anchorage Press. E-mail Kyle at khopkins@adn.com and also find him on our rural Alaska blog, The Village.

David Hulen

David Hulen, the ADN's state and local news editor, is responsible for political coverage. He has been an editor and reporter at the ADN for more than 20 years. E-mail David at dhulen@adn.com

Features

SECTION

Alaska political corruption

When the FBI raided state legislature offices in Aug. 2006, it publicly launched an investigation that ultimately reached the highest levels of Alaska politics, and continues to this day.

Republicans still well on top in new governor's race polling

Posted by Alaska_Politics

Anchorage Daily News

Posted: July 20, 2010 - 2:09 pm

From Sean Cockerham in Anchorage –

I’m catching up with some new polling on the Alaska governor’s race and it looks like not much has changed over the past several weeks. Rasmussen has a new poll with hypothetical head to head matches showing that each of the three Republicans running in the Aug. 24 primary would be the strong favorites to beat their Democratic opponent in the November election.

For some reason Rasmussen didn’t poll Republicans versus Republicans or Democrats against Democrats. But the Ethan Berkowitz campaign is advertising an Ivan Moore Research poll that indicates Berkowitz leads his Democratic primary opponent, Hollis French, with 43.1 percentage points to 14.6 percent for French.

Nearly 30 percent were undecided in that race, according to the July 6-11 Moore poll. Moore polled 336 likely Democratic primary voters and gave a margin of error of plus or minus 5 percent.

Berkowitz is getting some flak in Democratic circles for his proposal to dump the ACES oil tax system, championed by Democratic legislators, and replace it with an all-royalty system. But all the polling I’ve seen up to this point shows him with a big lead over French just a month before the primary.

Beating the Republicans in November is a whole different matter.

The Rasmussen poll suggests Gov. Sean Parnell would defeat Berkowitz 53 to 34 percent if the election were held now, slightly closer than the last time Rasmussen polled in May.

Thirteen percent were undecided or would vote for some other candidate in November.

The Rasmussen poll indicated Republican Ralph Samuels would beat Berkowitz 48 to 36 percent. Republican Bill Walker would beat Berkowitz 46 to 38 percent, according to the poll.

It was a July 15 survey of 500 likely voters, with a margin of error of plus or minus 4.5 percentage points. Rasmussen also polled how French would do against each of the Republicans running for governor.

It suggested Parnell would defeat French 57 to 29 percent, Samuels would win 49 to 30 percent and Walker would beat French 50 to 32 percent.