Sarah Palin For Senate Leads Opinion Poll in Alaska

Sarah Palin hold a narrow lead in a hypothetical GOP primary for US Senate from Alaska.

The former Alaska governor and 2008 vice presidential candidate garners 32 percent of the vote. Lt. Gov. Meed Treadwell has 30 percent and 2010 Senate nominee Joe Miller lags with 14 percent in a new poll commissioned by the Tea Party Leadership Fund.

The poll results suggest that Palin has a 62 percent favorability rating with GOP voters in her state and also is seen as the candidate among the three who would be the strongest person to take on liberal Democrats in Washington.

After winning the primary, Miller — who was endorsed by Palin — lost to fellow Republican Lisa Murkowski in the 2010 general election after Murkowski, the incumbent, mounted a successful and unprecedented write-in campaign.

The Tea Party is touting the outspoken Palin to run for the seat in 2014 currently held by Democrat Mark Begich, but she is thus far non-committal and may instead perhaps prefer to continue “going rogue” rather than holding a formal political office.

A Palin spokesman said that the former governor was grateful and honored for the Tea Party support but that “the draft Sarah Palin for Senate fundraising campaign initiated by the Tea Party Leadership Fund is not authorized, endorsed or supported by Governor Palin or SarahPAC.”

The fact that the Senate seat is currently held by a Democrat is an anomaly as Alaska is traditionally a solid GOP state. Republican Sen. Ted Stevens was very narrowly defeated for re-election in 2008 by Begich but only after Stevens was found guilty in a federal corruption trial shortly before the voting. Steven had declined to step aside and let another Republican run in his place. It subsequently turned out that the charges against Stevens were wholly trumped up, and his conviction was later vacated on the grounds of prosecutorial misconduct. Stevens, the longest serving Republican senator in history and a decorated WW II pilot, later tragically died in a private plane crash in Alaska.

Polls are often all over the map, but that being said, do you think that Sarah Palin will or should run for Senate?

[Image credit: Therealbs2002]