A 24-hour poll appearing on the Must Read Alaska Facebook page asked the audience if Sen. Lisa Murkowski should vote “yes” or “no” on the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh for the U.S. Supreme Court. The poll ran from 7 am Friday to 7 am Saturday, one day after Gov. Bill Walker and Lt. Gov. Byron Mallott issued a statement opposing the Kavanaugh confirmation.
Some 1,308 people took part in the MRAK poll, including a handful of those who voted at this web site because they do not have a Facebook page.
Of those participating, just 91 want Murkowski to vote against the nomination of Kavanaugh.
The poll is not scientific, but it is affordable for MRAK, and it provides a snapshot of one slice of Alaskans. Participation was particularly robust. The poll was shared by 82 Facebook users, reaching a wide audience, with 29 comments made in the comment section, and 95 reactions.
The poll was not “boosted,” a term used when an item on Facebook becomes a paid promotion that is shown more widely or to a specific audience. Facebook does not allow boosting of polls on its platform. Therefore, the reach for such a poll is naturally more narrow to a like-minded audience.
Of those voting yes to confirm Kavanaugh, 55 percent were men, and 45 percent women. The “no” vote was split evenly between men and women. A couple of the “no” votes were from ghost accounts, those with no prior Facebook activity and likely fake, but the remainder were recognizably from Alaskans or people with Facebook friends in Alaska.
The early voting on the poll was consistently 94 percent in favor of confirmation for the first seven hours, but as the poll became more widely shared on Facebook, the Kavanaugh supported eroded by one percent.
Kavanaugh’s female accuser has agreed to testify in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, nearly guaranteeing a delay of the confirmation vote, which had been planned for Thursday. It now appears certain that the Senate will not be able to seat a Supreme Court justice before the start of the next court’s session the first week of October.
[Read: Blasey Ford’s witnesses say they don’t remember it like she does]
