Despite a 40-year tenure in the Senate, Republican Sen. Ted Stevens is about to confront an entirely new challenge – a tough re-election campaign. Democrat Mark Begich, the Mayor of Anchorage, announced yesterday that he has formed an exploratory committee for a likely bid against Stevens.
Stevens, 84, was appointed to the Senate in 1968 and was elected to a full term in 1970 with 60 percent of the vote. His next five re-election bids have been cake walks in which he has gotten between 66 percent and 89 percent of the vote. Much of Stevens’ electoral strength can be attributed to his relentless pursuit of federal dollars for his small state. By most accounts, the incumbent has brought hundreds of billions of dollars in federal largesse to Alaska over the years for causes large and small, and at times, controversial.
So what has changed to make a once sure bet for re-election vulnerable? First, Alaska votes have not been immune to the political scandals that have popped up in Congress and elsewhere around the country. For the
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