Norwegian Curse Words, Hoodies, and the Alaska Senate Race

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Alaska’s Democratic Senate candidate Scott McAdams, who we profiled here last month, is up with his first ad, which touts his deep ties to the state. It’s probably the first political ad to brag about being cursed at in Norwegian. I’d also venture that it’s the first to feature a candidate dressed in a hoodie.

“This is a long way from DC,” he says in the ad. He continues: “I’m not your usual Senate candidate.”

McAdams’ candidacy got a whole lot more exciting a few weeks ago, as tea-party candidate Joe Miller defeated incumbent Republican Lisa Murkowski in the primary. Then Murkowski decided to launch a write-in campaign, spicing things up further. The latest poll shows McAdams behind both his opponents; Miller at 42 percent, Murkowski at 27, and McAdams at 25. But Murkowski’s bid relies largely on making sure people know how to spell her last name—which is apparently more difficult than it seems.

But McAdams might have more of a shot than the top line poll numbers show right now. The same poll found that 18 percent of likely voters in the state said they were “nor sure” yet what they think of McAdams. (Only 4 percent said the same of Miller and 2 percent said that about Murkowski.) This is his first ad in the state, which means more Alaskans could be getting to know McAdams in the coming weeks.

Here’s the spot:

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GREAT JOURNALISM, SLOW FUNDRAISING

Our team has been on fire lately—publishing sweeping, one-of-a-kind investigations, ambitious, groundbreaking projects, and even releasing “the holy shit documentary of the year.” And that’s on top of protecting free and fair elections and standing up to bullies and BS when others in the media don’t.

Yet, we just came up pretty short on our first big fundraising campaign since Mother Jones and the Center for Investigative Reporting joined forces.

So, two things:

1) If you value the journalism we do but haven’t pitched in over the last few months, please consider doing so now—we urgently need a lot of help to make up for lost ground.

2) If you’re not ready to donate but you’re interested enough in our work to be reading this, please consider signing up for our free Mother Jones Daily newsletter to get to know us and our reporting better. Maybe once you do, you’ll see it’s something worth supporting.

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