Joshua Saul | May 12, 2010

On May 5 the six men running for governor sat at a long table at the Dena'ina Center in downtown Anchorage and talked about why they were best for the job.

The next night, Rasmussen Reports called 500 people to ask who they thought would be best for the job, and a lot of them answered "Parnell." In a race between Parnell and any of his Democratic challengers, the survey showed the current governor running away with about 60 percent of the vote -- 58 percent against Ethan Berkowitz and 62 percent against either Hollis French or Bob Poe.

A theoretical matchup between Republican candidate Ralph Samuels still ended with a GOP victory, though by a smaller margin. In that hypothetical battle, Samuels won with 43 percent of the vote against Berkowitz, 47 percent of the vote against Poe, and 48 percent of the vote against French.

Republican candidate Bill Walker was not included in the survey, which also asked about topics including the adoption of an illegal immigration law like the one recently passed in Arizona. Of those polled, 55 percent said they would support a similar law here.

Rasmussen Reports, which was founded by pollster Scott Rasmussen in 2003, said the poll has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4.5 percentage points with a high level of confidence.