135,445 129,431 Start date November 4, 2014 | 48.0% 45.8% | |
 | ||
Winner Dan Sullivan | ||
United states senate election in alaska 2014
The 2014 United States Senate election in Alaska took place on November 4, 2014, to elect a member of the United States Senate to represent the State of Alaska, concurrently with the election of the Governor of Alaska, as well as other elections to the United States Senate in other states and elections to the United States House of Representatives and various state and local elections.
Contents
- United states senate election in alaska 2014
- Background
- Democratic Libertarian Independence primary
- Declared
- Declined
- Subsequent events
- Republican primary
- Withdrew
- Polling
- Debates
- References
Incumbent Democratic U.S. Senator Mark Begich ran for re-election to a second term in office. Primary elections were held on August 19, 2014. Begich was renominated and the Republicans picked former Commissioner of the Alaska Department of Natural Resources Dan Sullivan.
On November 7, Sullivan held an 8,000-vote lead, which on November 11 had shrunk slightly to 7,991 votes. Multiple media outlets called the race for Sullivan on November 12 and Begich conceded to Sullivan on November 17. His loss–coupled with Republican Sean Parnell's defeat in the gubernatorial election–marked just the fifth time in the last 50 years in which U.S. Senate and gubernatorial incumbents from different political parties have been defeated in the same state.
Background
Democrat Mark Begich won the 2008 election, defeating six-term Republican incumbent Ted Stevens by just under 4,000 votes. A few days before the election, Stevens had been convicted of a felony, however the case against Stevens was later dismissed by the Justice Department after the election when serious issues of prosecutorial misconduct emerged. In the 2012 presidential election, Mitt Romney easily won Alaska by 13 points, which made Begich a prime target during an election cycle in which Republicans needed a net gain of six seats to retake control of the Senate.
Democratic-Libertarian-Independence primary
Candidates from the Alaska Democratic Party, Alaska Libertarian Party and Alaskan Independence Party appear on the same ballot, with the highest-placed candidate from each party receiving that party's nomination.
Declared
Declared
Declared
Declined
Subsequent events
In an upset, the unknown Thom Walker won the Libertarian nomination despite not campaigning and raising no money. Libertarians speculated that he was a Republican "plant" designed to keep a more viable Libertarian from winning the nomination and then taking votes away from the Republican nominee in the general election. They further speculated that Walker was chosen because he shared a surname with Bill Walker (no relation), who is running as an Independent candidate in the 2014 gubernatorial election, and that voters may have been confused because Bill Walker did not appear on the primary ballot and thus they may have voted for Thom Walker in error. This confusion could have extended to the general election, with voters picking Thom Walker for the Senate, thinking he was Bill Walker.
Walker withdrew from the race on 27 August, saying that "my work location and schedule will have me out of town, out of contact and off the campaign trail for too long." The Libertarian executive board replaced him as the nominee with Mark Fish.
Alaskan Independence nominee Vic Kohring, who had changed his voter registration from Republican to Alaskan Independence just before the filing deadline, withdrew from the race on September 2 and endorsed Dan Sullivan. The Alaskan Independence Party did not name a replacement nominee before the deadline for them to do so had passed.
Republican primary
Former six-term Senator Ted Stevens, who would have been almost 91 years old on election day, had filed to run in the 2014 election, but he was killed in a plane crash on August 9, 2010.
Declared
Withdrew
Declined
Polling
Declared
Declined
Debates
Begich and Sullivan participated in a televised debate regarding fisheries on August 27, 2014 at the University of Alaska Anchorage. Another televised debate concerning natural resources was held on October 1 in Kodiak, Alaska.