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The 2010 AK US Senate election, in what is likely the most impressive U.S. electoral feat of the 21st century Incumbent Senator Lisa Murkowski won reelection via a write-in campaign over far right Republican opponent Judge Joe Miller — who had defeated Murkowski in that year's GOP primary — and Democratic candidate Sitka mayor Scott McAdams
The primary saw Miller win due to a combination of the backing of former governor Sarah Palin — as well as the tea party movement — combining with Murkowski's controvercial tenure as a stalwart if not "Squishy" moderate senator, and an abortion referendum on primary day creating fertile ground for a right wing challenge to Murkowski
This, likely, would've been the end of Murkowski's one-term senate career if not both her tenacity to find ways to continue running (not wanting to back Democrat Scott McAdams) and for Joe Miller's controvercial status where — following the nomination — multiple embarasing scandals were uncovered by the press
The most major of these scandals being the fact that Miller had used government computers for political purposes — eventually declaring, in a major blunder, that he would 'not discuss his past with the media'
The end result of these scandals, and Murkowski running a campaign focused on educating voters on how to vote for her, was her winning with 39.5% of the vote.
Of note, due to it being the first senatorial write-in win since Strom Thurmond's in 1954, Miller had sought to throw out all ballots that did not clearly spell Murkowski's name — throwing some out, but of the 41% of total votes being write ins, Murkowski was able to retain the sovereign majority
Resulting in Joe Miller still lossing by 4% — a surprisingly inpressive showing not just given due to the Democratic presense on the ballot, but due to the fact that Murkowski was running a write-in campaign with an admittedly hard-to-spell name
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