From Sean Cockerham in Anchorage –

Another poll is out today in Alaska’s U.S. Senate race, and this one takes a unique stab at simulating the impact of Lisa Murkowski’s write-in candidacy.

Anchorage pollster Ivan Moore first asked 750 people whether they would vote for Republican Joe Miller, Democrat Scott McAdams or Libertarian Frederick Haase (since those are the candidates whose names will actually appear on the ballot.)

Over 43 percent said Miller and 27.8 percent said McAdams (Haase had just 1.8 percent.)

An additional 18 percent volunteered that they would vote for Murkowski, since they knew she was running a write-in candidacy to keep her seat,

Moore then asked a follow-up question to the 82 percent of the people who didn’t volunteer Murkowski, “as you may know, Lisa Murkowski is running a write-in campaign for U.S. Senate. Knowing this, would your vote for U.S. Senate stay the same or would you write-in Lisa Murkowski?”

Just over 30 percent of those said they would write in Murkowski. That -- combined with the people who volunteered her name -- would put Murkowski in the lead with 43.5 percent, followed by Miller with 35.8 percent and McAdams with 13.7 percent, according to Moore.

So what does that all mean? Does Murkowski get 18 percent or 43.5 percent of the vote? Good question. (And remember that if the polls were to be believed Murkowski would have won the Republican primary.)

Moore emailed the poll out to the Daily News and other reporters this morning. Moore, who had urged Murkowski to run as a write-in, had this to say in his column in the Anchorage Press.

“Now, the reality of the situation is that neither of these results is going to be correct. The first should be perceived as a minimum for Lisa, the latter a maximum. The reality lies somewhere in between… the question is where? Personally, I think the second measure is what will happen in an ideal, impediment-less world, and should be adjusted downwards by what we’d reasonably expect the attritional effects of the write-in to be. I have always maintained these will be relatively minimal, maybe not much more than a few percent of people who somehow remain unaware come election day that Lisa is an option, or get her name wrong, or don’t fill in the oval, or decide they can’t be bothered to write a name.

I think if the election was held today, it would probably be close, but Lisa would win it. The next five weeks will tell all: A Judgment Day of sorts is coming for Mr. Miller and it should be mighty entertaining to watch.”