Lisa Murkowski
Associated Press declared Sen. Lisa Murkowski the winner of the Alaska Senate race. She is the first person to be elected to the Senate with a write-in campaign since Sen. Strom Thurmond won his South Carolina seat in 1954.
The Alaska Republican’s victory comes after election officials counted and opened more than 100,000 write-in ballots over the course of seven days in Juneau.
Murkowski mounted her write-in campaign after Republican Joe Miller defeated her in the Republican primary.
Murkowski, who is scheduled to make her victory speech Wednesday evening, flew from Washington, D.C. to Anchorage earlier in the day to prepare for an evening announcement. Although election officials are still counting a few hundred absentee ballots sent from overseas, there are not enough of those votes to affect the outcome of the race.
Murkowski is already flexing her political muscles by leading a contingent of Republicans opposed to ending earmarks, and expressing her support of Obama’s policies to move the country forward.
