NM-Sen: Pearce Up in Poll; Domenici Contacting Voters to Support Wilson

Pete applauding Heather in 2006

Retiring Sen. Pete Domenici is contacting Repub voters around New Mexico this weekend to urge them to vote for Heather Wilson in the BOP primary for U.S. Senate to be held on Tuesday, June 3rd. Domenici recorded a personal message being used for robocalls. Peter St. Cyr has the scoop and the audio of Domenici's message on his new blog, Word for Word.

New Journal Poll
Could Domenici's last-minute endorsement of Wilson on Friday, coupled with his phone push over the weekend, make the difference in Wilson's race against Steve Pearce? The Albuquerque Journal today released polling results from a phone survey conducted on May 27-29 by Polling and Research Inc. that show Pearce ahead of Wilson, but close to the margin of error. The poll has Pearce up by six points over Wilson, at 45-39%, with a margin of error of plus or minus 4%. And given the unusually high percentage of undecideds, at 16%,  at this late stage of a race, anything can happen. Note, too, that the poll was conducted before news was made public that Domenici had endorsed Wilson.

As usual, the size of voter turnout and where it happens is also likely play a big role. As reported in the Journal:

• In the 1st District, where she has chalked up an impressive record of costly, hard-fought wins since taking office in 1998, Wilson had a 30-point advantage over Pearce— 57 percent to 27 percent.
     
• In the more conservative 2nd District, where he has served since 2003 and formerly was a state legislator from Hobbs, Pearce had a 41-point advantage— 64 percent to 23 percent.
     
• In the northern 3rd Congressional District, the contest was closer, but Pearce had a 9-point advantage: 46 percent to 37 percent.

In addition to strength in the South, "Pearce had sizable advantages in the northwest part of the state and on the east side. Several important northwest and east-side counties are included within the 3rd Congressional District." And "Wilson had a double-digit lead in the north-central part of the [third] district, which includes the cities of Santa Fe, Taos and Los Alamos."

Pearce beat Wilson in every age group except 65 and older, where 49% of voters favored Wilson, versus 39% for Pearce. Pearce and Wilson roughly split support among those with college degrees, but Pearce led among those with only some college experience and those with only a high school diploma.

More Explanation of Domenici's Endorsement
In another article today, the Journal quoted Domenici as saying he intended to stay neutral in the Senate primary race, but that his conscience kept "gnawing" at him to endorse Wilson:

"As I traveled around the state, I became more and more aware that Heather Wilson was not being depicted in the way that I know she is," Domenici said. "The thing that rancored me most was the major expenditure of money by the Club for Growth," he said. "They are out-of-state people who were having a great influence on who will win the election."

... Domenici also said Pearce's constant criticism of congressional spending rankled him. Domenici is widely known for bringing billions of dollars home to New Mexico from Washington.

"Every time I heard him talk about them (budget earmarks), I cringed," he said. "I think we've done some great things with them. To have one of my own running that way did not make me friendly."

(Click on photo for larger image. AP Photo by Jake Schoellkopf.)

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