Tea Party fave Joe Miller eyes Alaska Senate race

Catalina Camia, USA TODAY | USATODAY

Tea Party favorite Joe Miller, who lost a closely watched 2010 election in Alaska, is back for another possible Senate bid next year.

The Republican attorney formed an exploratory committee so he could test the waters for a Senate race in 2014 against Sen. Mark Begich, a vulnerable Democrat.

In 2010, Miller defeated GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski for the party's nomination in Alaska — only to lose the general election when Murkowski ran as a write-in candidate. Murkowski's election was historic: She was the first write-in candidate to win a Senate race since 1954.

"Voters must choose between the easy lies of an insider politician or the hard truth of a reformer," Miller said on his website Sunday night. "We need a candidate in 2014 who will join reformers like Rand Paul, Mike Lee, and Ted Cruz to confront President Obama, not one who will cut a deal to negotiate the terms of our surrender to his radical socialist agenda."

Begich is one of 21 Democrats up for re-election next year, and among seven senators on the ballot from Obama's party who hail from a red state that voted for Mitt Romney in the 2012 presidential elections. Begich, first elected in 2008, is said to have raised just under $1 million in the first quarter of this year.

Miller could have a primary on his hands, which would create one of those GOP establishment vs. insurgent primaries that dominated politics in 2010. Alaska Lt. Gov. Mead Treadwell has already formed an exploratory committee to look at the race.