DSCC chairman Chuck Schumer must be dancing in the streets this morning as his party scored a top recruit in the race against long-time Alaska Senator Ted Stevens. Politico's Josh Kraushaar reports Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich, who has long been pursued as a promising recruit, will announce his intentions to run against Stevens in a 2:30 p.m. Eastern Time press conference.

The announcement is not unexpected: The DSCC has talked Begich up for months, and the mayor recently joined other city leaders in Washington. National Republicans have anticipated his entry into the race as well, launching a site called BegichBaggage.com. A poll conducted in December by Maryland-based Research 2000 also seemed to encourage a Begich run, as he led by six points in a heavily Republican state.

Stevens, under investigation for his role in a scandal surrounding VECO Corp., an oil services company whose top officials are cooperating with authorities, has work to do to return to voters' good graces. The poll showed just 39% of Alaskans have a favorable opinion of Stevens, while 58% say they view him unfavorably. Still, despite the uphill battle, Stevens filed for re-election last week, though he declined reporters' questions about the investigation.

Begich, along with impressive poll numbers, is not an ordinary Alaska Democrat. His father, Nick, served as Alaska's lone Congressman until 1972, when, while traveling around the state with then-House Majority Leader Hale Boggs, his plane crashed. The younger Begich was elected mayor of the state's largest city in a 2003 special election and re-elected in 2006 by a wide 15-point margin over his chief opponent -- we kid you not -- Jack Frost.

Begich's entry into the race gives Democrats a strong chance to take back a seat they have not held since before Stevens' appointment, in 1968. Stevens is only the second person to hold the seat since Alaska gained statehood, in 1959, while four people have held the state's other Senate seat, currently occupied by Republican Lisa Murkowski.