Lisa Murkowski: Republican 'spoilsport'?

Alaska's GOP senator says she'll run as a write-in candidate against the Tea Partier (and Sarah Palin protege) who beat her in the primaries. Can she win?

Lisa Murkowski
(Image credit: Getty)

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) threw the race for her seat up in the air Friday by announcing she is running as a write-in candidate, joining the fray with Tea Party insurgent Joe Miller — who beat her in the GOP primary — and Democrat Scott McAdams. Murkowski said her campaign would be "tough," but that Alaskans are tough. "You don't think we can fill in an oval and learn to spell Lisa Murkowski? We can figure this out." Does she have a shot, or is she making a career-ending move? (Watch Murkowski's announcement)

Murkowski's a "viable" contender: Murkowski has "more than a trivial chance" of pulling this off, says Nate Silver in The New York Times. She's got some work to do, but polls show that she'd be "competitive" if she were on the ballot, and she has advantages that past write-in candidates don't: Fame and money. Meanwhile, nobody knows McAdams, and Miller's disliked by a third of Republicans and more than half of Independents.

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