Yesterday morning, internet organizer extraordinaire Markos Moulitsas announced, under his nom de blog, Kos, that his organization had commissioned a poll from Research 2000 showing Ethan Berkowitz leading Don Young 49% to 42%, and Mark Begich leading Ted Stevens 47% to 41% "if the 2008 race were held today." This is the third published poll showing Don Young losing, the first I know of showing a similar fate for Sen. Stevens.Research 2000's sample is fairly wide. Their poll is less tainted than Berkowitz's early October Ivan Moore poll, and less analytical in terms of primary candidate comparisons than Diane Benson's mid-November Craciun Group poll. Benson's poll reflects the widest margin of victory over Young yet. But Kos's poll is perhaps unfortunate in that his article about the race we now have is, well - it isn't there.
Although he mentions that Mayor Begich hasn't filed for the hypothetical race, he doesn't mention that another candidate, Ray Metcalfe, has. And he fails to mention the interesting three-way race for the Democratic Party nomination for the seat now held by Young. Nor does he mention that a lot of the reason Young has three viable challengers is because one of them, Diane Benson, gave Young a scare last year, even though he outspent her ten to one.
Here are the three matchups:
Moore October 13:
Berkowitz 51%
Young 46.5%
Craciun November 2:
Benson 45.3
Young 36.7%
United 2000 December 7:
Berkowitz 49%
Young 42%
Kos's article has about 90 comments, which is low, considering the national interest in Alaska politics these days. But DailyKos is widely read, and not just on the left. So his poll was picked up by more blogs and small-circulation inside-the-Beltway-type publications than any article so far published about Alaska 2008. Google already has several pages of articles about the Kos article.
I'm glad to see interest grow in both these campaigns. The winners of the August 2008 primaries will have only nine weeks to campaign for the November general election, and in a climate where national interest will be focused on what promises to be the nuttiest presidential election in memory.
The Berkowitz campaign must be very happy about this. About a quarter million lefty bloggers now think that Berkowitz is the only candidate running against Don Young. Plus, some of the blog commenters have promoted him to "Speaker of Alaska House of Representatives." And several commenters were glad that Berkowitz, who "will never open ANWR," is running. Whatever. The race just keeps getting more interesting, eh?
Update - Wednesday morning:
Researching old Ethan Berkowitz polls, I came up with this one from May of 2006:
Governers Poll -
May 1 to May 6
If the election were held today,
who would you choose as the next Governor?
Ethan Berkowitz 30% - 174 Votes
Sarah Palin 25% - 156
Eric Croft 14% - 82
Tony Knowles 14% - 80
John Binkley 12% - 75
Frank Murkowski 5% - 28
photo of Kos by Lindsay Beyerstein
8 comments:
Berkowitz so far seems to have the best shot at getting rid of Don Young. Even Benson's internal polls showed Berkowitz beating Young by a wider margin than any other Dem candidate.
The sooner Dems can coalesce around one candidate, the better chance they will have at unseating Young. Berkowitz seem to be that candidate, at least in Kos's eyes.
big dog -
Why do you think Berkowitz is the "best shot"?
Are you suggesting that Benson and J. Metcalfe pull up stakes and throw their support to Berkowitz at this point, or what?
I don't think the party itself can endorse any of those three before the late August primary, and you or I could file up until June 1.
Kos's article doesn't indicate any depth of knowledge about any of these three candidates - including Ethan, and his past articles on Alaska politics haven't been particularly well informed.
I DO want us to win, and would welcome a series of debates among these three over the winter. The debates might heighten interest in the healthiness and openness of Alaska Democrats, among other things.
That last poll was sweet. Interestingly, I think it was probably more accurate than not.
I was actually upset Ethan pulled out of the goober race when Tony Knowles dropped in. Not a big Tony fan, given he single-handedly destroyed commercial fishing in Cook Inlet.
If new Democrat blood had run against Sarah, we might have had a different outcome a year ago. Alaska is in a "throw the bums out" mode right now. Murky, Knowles, soon Don and maybe Ted. It's a good trend.
And when I say Knowles in that last comment, I mean his not winning against Sarah. Kind of "keep the bum out" variant of the throwing out.
How about: "Out with the old, in with the new."
There, better.
Ish,
I've known Sarah since 1992. We coached in the same soccer league for years. But I held my nose and voted for Tony. Since, I've come to respect Palin more than I thought I would.
Actually, Benson's Poll, which was done by a very reputable firm (The Craciun Group of Anchorage and Washington, DC) showed that Diane Benson would beat Young by almost twice the spread that Berkowitz would 8 vs 4). Pretty close numbers in a pretty close race that may force Berkowitz to dump a bunch of his own money into the mix.
THIS POLLSTER IS for Berkowitz for sure... and people like to vote for the winner...what a nice set up? Well D. Benson is an will be getting my money and VOTE..
I TRUST Diane Benson !!
BOSSA
independentalaskan,
Ethan is a more seasoned politician than Diane, that's for sure. But just as Diane deserves no freebies for standing up against Don young by herself last year, Ethan should get no freebies for having been a minority leader who had little impact on Alaska legislation for several years, and then went on to lose his next election in a three-way race against two Republicans.
What were Ethan's three major accomplishments as a legislator?
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