Joe Miller is back.
According to a report by the Capitol Hill newspaper Politico, Miller filed papers earlier this month declaring his intent to enter the 2014 Alaska Senate race.
A 2010 Republican Senate contender popular with the tea party, Miller defeated incumbent Sen. Lisa Murkowski in the Republican primary after being packed by Sarah Palin. But Murkowski decided to run as a write-in candidate during the general election, ultimately edging out Miller and a Democratic opponent to become the first senator since Strom Thurmond to win a Senate seat by write-in.
In April, Miller, a graduate of West Point and Yale Law School, announced on his website Restoring Liberty that he was considering entering the 2014 race. In a subsequent interview with The Daily Caller, Miller explained he wanted to fight government tyranny.
“The founders didn’t intend for the central government to have this degree of power,” he said.
“It is something that obviously in the wrong hands could be wielded in such a way that it absolutely would be tyranny in this country. … We need to take a stand against those things that are unconstitutional, that are contrary to what the founders have intended, and stop it.”
Miller also addressed a February Public Policy Polling survey which showed him losing in a hypothetical matchup with incumbent Democratic Alaska Sen. Mark Begich by 28 percentage points.
“It’s an uphill battle. Every one of these races involving a reformer against ‘the Establishment’ is an uphill battle,” he said.
“We don’t have this in the bag. I mean, when we started out in 2010, I think Murkowski had a 70-plus approval rating, and we weren’t even on the charts. So we’re light-years beyond where we were, and so in that respect we feel pretty good about it, but there is lots of work to be done.”
At the time, Miller said he would make a definitive decision on whether he would run “sooner rather than later.”
“I mean, we’re not going to wait, you know, months and months,” he said.
Since losing his 2010 race, Miller has been practicing law in Fairbanks and working on his political blog. He has also traveled widely, telling TheDC that he took two trips to Israel and Europe since 2010 and one trip to China.
Miller did not immediately return TheDC’s request for comment and confirmation on his decision to run.
UPDATE:
In a statement on his website, Miller responded to press reports confirming that he had in fact filed papers declaring his intent to run.
“On May 2nd, 2013, we filed paperwork with the Secretary of the Senate expressing an intent to run for US Senate in 2014,” Miller said. “The complexities of the law require filing after expenditures exceed $5,000, or when certain fund-raising or campaign activities are commenced. Support from the grassroots has been overwhelmingly positive, and we are moving forward within those guidelines organizing, fund-raising and coordinating with our volunteer base.”
