Is Alaska poised to elect a Tea Party senator?

Sarah and Todd Palin's friend Joe Miller seems ready to claim the GOP Senate nomination in deep-red AK. Time to notch a Senate seat for the insurgents?

If Sen. Lisa Murkowski loses the Alaska primary, she will not run on the Libertarian ticket in the fall.
(Image credit: Getty)

In her still-undecided GOP primary, Sen. Lisa Murkowski trails Sarah Palin-endorsed lawyer Joe Miller by 1,668 votes, with about 25,000 ballots outstanding. If Miller holds onto his lead, establishment candidate Murkowski's best hope for re-election would be finding another slot on the ballot — but Alaska's Libertarian Party seemingly quashed that possibility on Monday when it announced she would not be allowed to run on its ticket. In deep-red Alaska, does the Libertarian decision mean that the Tea Party has effectively locked up a seat in the Senate?

If Miller can get past Murkowski, it's Tea Party time: Assuming he prevails, Miller would be the "heavy favorite" in November, says Rick Klein at ABC News. "A Senator Miller would join a growing cohort" of anti-establishment Republican senators — "tea partiers plus like-minded veterans led by Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) — who owe little or nothing to GOP leadership and the party establishment."

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