Alaskan voters are accustomed to seeing Sarah Palin quit midway through a job, but her latest potential move has still raised some eyebrows.
Though newly hired at Fox News, the former governor is already thinking about jumping ship for a Senate run.
On Tuesday, Palin said she was "considering" challenging incumbent Sen. Mark Begich (D) in 2014. In an interview with Fox News' Sean Hannity on his radio program, Palin said she has been asked to join the race, but that she wanted to wait and see who else joins the field before making a decision.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
Join more than 350,000 subscribers and keep yourself informed with a selection of The Week’s most interesting, enlightening and entertaining stories - plus daily puzzles.
Join more than 350,000 subscribers and keep yourself informed with a selection of The Week’s most interesting, enlightening and entertaining stories - plus daily puzzles.
Latest Videos FromThe Week
"I've considered it because people have requested me considering it," she said. "But I'm still waiting to see, you know, what the lineup will be."
In May, a group of Tea Party activists launched a petition to draft Palin into the race.
Though Palin may want to run for office again, the former Alaska governor and 2008 vice presidential candidate would have a tough time appealing to the state's voters.
A poll by the liberal-leaning PPP back in February found Palin deeply unpopular back home. Palin trailed Hillary Clinton by a 16-point margin in a hypothetical presidential contest. And despite Congress' dismal approval rating — a May Gallup poll found that just 16 percent of Americans thought Congress was going a good job — a strong majority of Alaskans said they had a higher opinion of the legislature than they did of Palin.
"Alaskans are pretty clearly done with Sarah Palin," Dean Debnam, PPP's president, said.
If Palin does join the race, she will likely first have to go up against Joe Miller, the Tea Party favorite who defeated Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R) in a fractious primary battle in 2010. Murkowski won re-election that November as a write-in candidate, and Miller has since filed the paperwork to make a another run at the Senate next year.
Then again, Palin, who has not held elected office since she resigned midway through her only gubernatorial term in 2009, could avoid a primary altogether if she goes through with her threat to break off from the GOP and form her own party.
