From Erika Bolstad in Washington D.C. –

As promised, the North Carolina firm Public Policy Polling has released its survey of Alaska voters and what they think of the Senate race.

The headline: In the general election, Republican Joe Miller leads Democrat Scott McAdams by 8 points in a head-to-head race. Miller, the poll found, has a 4-point advantage over Sen. Lisa Murkowski in a 3-way race if she runs on the Libertarian ticket.

Miller continues to hold a 1,668-vote lead over Murkowski in the Republican primary, even as more 23,472 ballots remain uncounted in the race. The post-election ballot count has proved almost more controversial than the campaign itself, with allegations of ballot-counting monkey business on Miller's side, and the counterclaim by Murkowski that Miller is "paranoid."

The results appear to give Democrats "at least a glimmer of hope in Alaska," PPP said, although that would fade if the defeated Lisa Murkowski ends up running in the general election as the Libertarian candidate.

"There's still a lot of uncertainty about what the final candidate field in Alaska will look like," said Dean Debnam, President of Public Policy Polling. "But it’s clear this race will be more competitive than anyone ever would have imagined a week ago."

McAdams benefits from a more united party, Debnam wrote. Their poll found he would land 81% of the Democratic vote; in comparison, Miller’s would land 73% of Republican votes. The candidates split with independents at 42%, what PPP describes as
"a good number for Democrats in a year where their candidates are largely getting blown out with that group of voters.:

The poll also found that Murkowski's approval ratings make her one of the more popular senators in the country in the company's polling. But she does better among Democrats, with 52 percent support. She has just 47 percent of support among Republicans, a number that PPP described as speaking the trouble she had in last week's primary. Miller is less popular, the poll found. Some 36 percent of voters see him favorably, and 52 percent negatively.

McAdams, the poll found, is still largely anonymous, with 53 percent of voters offering no opinion about him.

PPP, which does automated telephone polling, surveyed 1,306 likely voters Friday and Saturday. The margin of error is +/-2.7 percent. Other factors, such as refusal to be interviewed and weighting, may introduce additional error that is more difficult to quantify.