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With the shocking upset victory by tea party darling Joe Miller over U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski for the Republican nomination, McAdams says volunteers and money are flowing his way.

A pair of staffers from the office of U.S. Sen. Mark Begich are taking leave to assist the campaign. He has hired a spokeswoman.

Senate Democrats are polling in Alaska to find out if their money would be well-spent backing McAdams, the mayor of Sitka.

McAdams says e-mails are pouring in with offers to help. And he expects his campaign to have collected $100,000 by end of the week as Alaskans pitch in to help him defeat the Republican endorsed by Sarah Palin.

Hoonah mayor Alf “Windy” Skaflestad said that the roads affected by a lengthy police standoff should be fully operational sometime on Monday.

Skaflestad said parts of Front Street, Second Street, Roosevelt Street and Hill Street were closed for about 24 hours because of the police standoff at the residence of John Marvin Jr., which began Saturday night.

Marvin surrendered at around 9:30 a.m. Monday and is now being held at the Lemon Creek Correctional Center in Juneau.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Political upstart Joe Miller continues to lead incumbent U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski in the Republican primary race in Alaska. Alaska Democrats couldn’t be happier.

Their candidate in the race, Sitka Mayor Scott McAdams, figured to be a huge underdog against Murkowski. Through June 30, McAdams had raised less than $10,000 in a Democratic primary that featured mostly fringe candidates.

But if Murkowski can’t overcome a 1,500-vote deficit through absentee ballots, Democrats like McAdams‘ chances against Miller, a conservative Fairbanks attorney who describes himself as a “constitutional conservative.”

Miller is a darling of the tea party, and Democrats are painting him as an extremist who will not work in Alaska’s best interests.

“I believe we are the moderate, rational, practical, common-sense campaign, not the campaign of extreme measures and 19th century ideology,” McAdams said Wednesday.

McAdams said he didn’t agree with Murkowski on all issues but respected her experience and talent. Miller, he said, distorted Murkowski’s record in negative advertising late in the campaign.

“Joe Miller proved he will do just about anything to get elected,” McAdams said.

McAdams, a former commercial fisherman, said the Republican primary showed that Alaska was ready for change, but not the kind Miller represents.

“While the Tea Party Express is a national media phenomena, I don’t believe it reflects Alaska’s values,” he said.

He called the movement an extreme version of “the party of no” that will reject federal aid to build Alaska infrastructure. McAdams said he will appeal to Alaska Democrats as well as moderate Republicans to win the general election.

“I believe it’s going to take all of our diligence, all of our hard work, to ensure that Joe Miller and the Tea Party Express aren’t able to take root in Alaska,” he said.

McAdams‘ campaign has received a Federal Election Commission letter for failing to file a required preprimary report for receipts and expenditures through Aug. 4.

Alaska Democratic Party Chairwoman Patti Higgins said McAdams is likely to get a financial boost from the national party if Miller represents the GOP and the door opens a crack for a Democrat.

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee on Wednesday called Miller “a dangerous enemy to middle-class Alaskans” who would like to “transition out” of Social Security and phase out Medicare.

McAdams said he has given no consideration to stepping down in favor of a better-known Democrat. As of June 1, he said, no one had heard of Miller.

“I’ve been a locally elected leader for eight years,” he said, and the only candidate who’s ever balanced a public budget.

As for Miller’s campaign tactics, McAdams said he’s ready.

“I worked on the deck of a fishing boat,” McAdams said. “I can deal with a guy like Joe Miller.”

ANCHORAGE— A conservative Alaska lawyer credits his primary vote lead over U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski largely to “common sense” voters dissatisfied with the direction taken by Congress and President Barack Obama.

“Everybody understands the entitlement state is over,” Joe Miller told The Associated Press on Thursday. “We can’t continue to expend at the rate we’re expending.”

Miller, 43, of Fairbanks, stunned political pundits this week with his 1,688-vote lead over Murkowski in the Republican primary.

Murkowski, who was appointed by her father in 2002 when he was elected Alaska governor, was heavily favored to win — and still could. She expects to rally when thousands of absentee ballots are counted.

Murkowski, 53, asked the top attorney for the national Republicans’ Senate campaign committee to help her campaign prepare for tallying about 20,000 absentee and questioned ballots.

Miller called the involvement the “power of the incumbency being brought to play.” He said he expects a similar vote gap to remain when all the votes are counted. If there is not, “then we’ll absolutely want to take a closer look and see if Alaskans’ will has been thwarted by some sort of lawyer game.”

Besides disgruntled voters, Miller said his campaign also was boosted by the endorsement of former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and the involvement of the Tea Party Express, which contributed nearly $600,000 to his campaign.

Another helpful factor in Tuesday’s election was an initiative to require parental notification for minors to obtain abortions, he said. The measure, which passed, likely drew more conservative voters to the polls.

Miller lost his first foray to elected office when he sought a state House seat in 2004, but the Senate run is his first statewide campaign. He credits the dedication and energy of his volunteers for making a difference this time.

“It truly was spreading the word, getting out the signs, making sure that people knew about the candidacy and the direction this state could go to, I think, help secure its future,” Miller said.

Carl Shepro, a political science professor at the University of Alaska Anchorage, said another likely factor that helped Miller was a barrage of ads that labeled Murkowski as a liberal and questioned her voting record on federal health care reform. Shepro believes a lot of people bought the message.

“Some of the ads were misleading,” he said. “It was very clearly the case that she is not how he depicted here. Most of her votes have not been supportive of Democratic positions.”

The race’s outcome will remain in limbo at least until Tuesday. That’s when state elections workers will begin to count absentee ballots. They have until Sept. 8 to deliver a final tally.

Whatever returns there are, Miller said many veterans and active military members vote by absentee ballot and he expects their vote to favor him. Murkowski spokesman Steve Wackowski said the senator expects the absentees to bring her victory.

“We had a very robust absentee push,” he said. “We’re counting on the gap to close. We’re optimistic.”

A tie would automatically trigger a recount, Fenumiai said. If the difference is less than 0.5 percent or fewer than 20 votes, a defeated candidate could request a recount at no charge. With a larger vote difference, a recount would cost $15,000.

Miller or Murkowski will face Scott McAdams, who won the Democratic primary, in the Nov. 2 election. Alaska Democratic Party Chairwoman Patti Higgins quelled rumors that the party would seek a higher profile candidate than McAdams, 30, the mayor of Sitka.

“We are full bore ahead with Scott McAdams,” she said.

ANCHORAGE— Seward police say that a bystander was injured when they fatally shot a bear roaming through the town.

Police say that a shotgun round pierced the black bear Thursday night, but ricocheted and hit a bystander in the abdomen.

“I think it went through his ear and maybe out one side of his head. And then, like I say, it ricocheted off something and then hit the bystander,” City Manager Phillip Oates said.

Oates added the person was merely bruised.

“It didn’t even penetrate the skin … We’re very lucky in that case,” Oates said.

Police did not identify the man hit by the ricochet.

Officers were responding to a call of a bear hiding near the boat harbor. Police tried shooing the bear away, and people gathered near the area to watch. When the bear ran, an officer fired the shotgun, but the bear kept running. The officer shot again, that time injuring the bystander.

Oates said the man was standing about 125 feet from where the bear was at the time of the shooting. He was examined and released from Providence Seward Medical Center.

Officers were responding to a handful of bear calls that night in the Kenai Peninsula city of 2,600 people. One bear damaged a screen door, while another “entered a residence to eat the dog’s food.”