A new poll by local pollster David Dittman should be fairly disheartening to former Gov. Sarah Palin, and onetime U.S. senate candidate Joe Miller.
The poll questioned 400 Alaskans during a two-week period in March on their views of Palin, Miller and the job their congressional delegation was doing in Washington. The news was fairly good for the delegation, but not so good for Palin and for Miller.
Some of the results on Palin:
- 61 percent of Alaskans had an "unfavorable" view
- 39 percent of those had a "very unfavorable" view
- 13 percent had a "very favorable" view
The former governor's numbers had fallen since an April 2010 Dittman poll, when 46 percent responded favorably and 52 percent of respondents viewed her unfavorably.
Miller's numbers are even worse than that. A whopping 73 percent of Alaskans had an unfavorable view of him, with 53 percent "very unfavorable."
Miller is the newly hired chairman for the Nevada-based Western Representation Political Action Committee, a group he has described as an "up and coming tea party PAC" with a mission to "elect constitutional conservatives."
As far as we know, Miller still calls Alaska home. But he did sojourn Outside recently to make the rounds for tea party tax day events in Kansas and Idaho. One tweet said that he was in the land of "patriots."
Alaskans are famously hard on their politicians, but not impossibly hard. Voters have turned on politicians in the recent past for nepotism and corruption allegations. Quitting on the job or having a reporter handcuffed for asking questions on the campaign trail probably didn't help Palin or Miller, respectively.
Indeed, all three members of the state's congressional delegation received "excellent or good" approval ratings above 50 percent. Congressman Don Young enjoyed a 63 percent approval rating, with 32 percent disapproving. Democratic Sen. Mark Begich's approval was at 57 percent, with 33 percent disapproving.
Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski got a 71 percent approval rating, making her the most popular among the delegation, according to the poll. Just 27 percent of respondents disapproved of her job.
Contact Amanda Coyne at amanda(at)alaskadispatch.com
[CORRECTION: This article was updated April 20, 2011. It originally stated that 26 percent of Alaskans responded favorably when asked how they viewed Sarah Palin in April 2010. The actual percentage of Alaskans who responded favorably regarding Palin was 46 percent.]