The Alaska Democrat who lost his U.S. Senate seat two years ago is not planning a return this year.<\/p>\n
On Thursday, Mark Begich used a morning Anchorage talk-radio program to announce that he will not conduct a write-in campaign for Senate this fall.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat the future holds is unknown, but at this point in time, I feel it\u2019s not right for me,\u201d he told KENI-AM 650\u2019s Mark Rydell.<\/p>\n
This fall, incumbent Republican Lisa Murkowski is defending her seat from a constellation of challengers including independent Margaret Stock, Democratic candidate Ray Metcalfe and Joe Miller, who has been a shooting star over the past six years.<\/p>\n
In 2010\u2019s Republican U.S. Senate primary, Miller unexpectedly defeated Murkowski. The incumbent responded by launching the first successful write-in campaign for U.S. Senate since 1954. Miller ran for Senate again in 2014 but lost to Dan Sullivan in the Republican primary. Sullivan went on to defeat Begich in the general election.<\/p>\n
This year, Miller is running as the Libertarian Party\u2019s candidate, having announced his campaign on the last possible date.<\/p>\n
When that happened, Alaska Democrats began calling Begich, urging him to run. Their thinking: Miller, running to the right of Murkowski, might siphon votes from the incumbent, opening the door for a candidate to the left.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have had \u2014 since Joe Miller got into the race \u2014 you can imagine the conversation,\u201d Begich said.<\/p>\n
Begich said he was \u201csurprised and honored\u201d by the calls and emails he received, but \u201cI feel it\u2019s not the right time for me and my family.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSometimes politics is timing, but you\u2019ve got to manage these things very carefully,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Rydell asked Begich if he would predict a victory for someone or endorse a candidate.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s Lisa\u2019s race to lose, to be frank,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Despite that, he said no one should underestimate Joe Miller, who appears to have learned a great deal since he was defeated by Murkowski in 2010.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you listen to Joe Miller, Joe has a much more controlled presentation. He\u2019s not like he was six years ago. I think that election gave him a lot to think about,\u201d Begich said. \u201cLow turnout favors Miller, and I think it\u2019s going to be low turnout \u2026 on the other hand, Lisa has a pretty broad base, and you have two other candidates.\u201d<\/p>\n
A popular belief among state politicos is that Begich will be among the challengers to Gov. Bill Walker when he comes up for re-election in 2018, and Rydell asked Begich directly about that.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll let the cards play out,\u201d Begich said in response.<\/p>\n
He also referenced an editorial published by the Empire urging his selection as Secretary of the Interior if Hillary Clinton is elected president.<\/p>\n
\u201cSpeculating on me is more speculating than speculating on the stock market,\u201d Begich said about the editorial.<\/p>\n
While Begich made no firm commitments, Rydell believes a run for governor is in his future.<\/p>\n
\u201cI imagine Walker\u2019s people are pulling their hair out right now, because that\u2019s what this implies,\u201d he said after Begich hung up the phone.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Alaska Democrat who lost his U.S. Senate seat two years ago is not planning a return this year. On Thursday, Mark Begich used a morning Anchorage talk-radio program to announce that he will not conduct a write-in campaign for Senate this fall. \u201cWhat the future holds is unknown, but at this point in time, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":426,"featured_media":9567,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[230],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-9566","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-state-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9566","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/426"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9566"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9566\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9567"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9566"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9566"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9566"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=9566"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}