NM-Sen: New SUSA Poll Shows Pearce (Barely) Winning Primary, Udall Winning Senate Seat vs. Either Opponent

Results are in from a new SurveyUSA Poll conducted for KOB-TV in Albuquerque. With 18 days left in the U.S. Senate primary race, the polling shows:

GOP Primary
Steve Pearce 49%
Heather Wilson 46%

With a margin of error of 4.8% for the poll (rather high), Pearce and Wilson are in a statistical tie for the GOP nomination. Compared to an identical SurveyUSA poll released six months ago, Pearce is up 12 points while Wilson is down 10 points. Among conservatives, Pearce leads by 14; among moderates, Wilson leads by 17. Among men, Pearce, leads by 11; among women, Wilson leads by 5 -- a 16 point gender gap.

Among voters age 18 to 49, Pearce leads by 9; among voters 50+, Pearce and Wilson tie. Among whites, Pearce and Wilson tie; among Hispanics, Pearce leads by 16. Wilson leads by 25 points in Bernalillo County, where Albuquerque is located; Pearce leads by 22 points in the rest of the state. SurveyUSA estimates that 40% of Republican voters will come from Bernalillo County. The larger the turnout from that county, the better Wilson does.

General Election
Udall 60%, Pearce 36%
Udall 61%, Wilson 35%

In a hypothetical General Election for U.S. Senator from New Mexico 25 weeks to the vote, Democrat Tom Udall defeats either Republican Pearce or Republican Wilson by a nearly identical margin. Udall leads among both men and women, young and old, white and Hispanic, regardless of opponent. 1 in 4 Republicans cross over and vote Democrat; 1 in 10 Democrats cross over to vote Republican.

Another point to consider is that undecided voters in the general election polling were in the 3-4 percent range, showing that a large majority of those polled already know the candidates and have made up their minds early. It should be a difficult task for either Pearce of Wilson to significantly dig into Udall's large lead.

Filtering: 2,200 New Mexico adults were interviewed by SurveyUSA 05/12/08 through 05/14/08. Of them, 1,827 were registered to vote. Of them, 439 were determined by SurveyUSA to be likely to vote in the Republican Primary. These likely Primary voters were included in the Primary Poll portion of the questionnaire. General Election hypothetical match-ups were asked of all registered voters.

Dig In
has a nice summary of data about New Mexico and this Senate seat past and present. They now show this Senate race as Leaning Democratic.

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