BREAKING NEWS: Democrats’ new poll shows many statewide races are tight contests

The Democratic Party’s newest poll numbers may surprise many and should have some of its statewide candidates a little nervous.

Gov. Bill Richardson and treasurer candidate James B. Lewis are doing fine, according to the polls, but every other statewide Democratic candidate is running a close race. The poll, which is hot off the presses and the most recent survey conducted by the Democrats, has a margin of error of about 4 percent.

Let’s start with the interesting races:

• Democratic attorney general candidate Gary King is beating Republican Jim Bibb 49-45 percent. This is perhaps the biggest surprise in the poll, though Bibb is saying his latest poll also has the race in single digits.

The most recent Albuquerque Journal poll, conducted in late September, had King ahead 55-24 percent, with Bibb’s biggest problem being name recognition.

However, a month is an eternity in an election season, and since then Republicans have put a lot of resources into this race.

As a result, Bibb’s name recognition has skyrocketed. He has spent more than $500,000 this month on television commercials that are well-done and effective, and asked supporters for another $100,000 on Monday.

• Land Commissioner candidate Jim Baca is losing to Republican incumbent Pat Lyons 44-50 percent in the Democrats’ poll.

This is also a surprise. The most recent Journal poll in this race, conducted in mid-October, had Baca ahead 42-40 percent.

It’s no secret that Lyons has a lot more money to spend, but most are expecting this to be the race that keeps us awake into the early hours of Nov. 8 awaiting results, and many doubt Baca is actually down six points.

Richardson is lending his support to Baca, and held a news conference Monday with him to announce that he will take some of Baca’s proposals for protecting the state’s public lands to the legislature next year.

• The poll has Democratic secretary of state candidate Mary Herrera is beating Republican Vickie Perea 46-40 percent. The Republicans likely have a poll showing a similarly close contest, because they’ve been pumping a lot of money into this race in recent weeks in the form of negative attacks against Herrera.

• Democratic auditor candidate Hector Balderas is beating Republican Lorenzo Garcia 43-38 percent. There have been no public polls done in the auditor race, but it’s no surprise that this one is close. Many Democrats have told me they were so disheartened or angered by the Jeff Armijo situation that they decided to vote for Garcia.

What has baffled many is the fact that Republicans haven’t put more resources into Garcia’s campaign. Aside from land commissioner, many think this office is the one the GOP is most likely to win.

• Democratic treasurer candidate James B. Lewis is beating Republican Demesia Padilla 51-35 percent in the Democrats’ poll. It appears that, at least in Doña Ana County, the GOP started putting fewer resources into this race and more into the secretary of state and attorney general races several weeks ago.

Perhaps their polls also show that Lewis has nothing to fear.

• Gov. Bill Richardson is leading Republican challenger John Dendahl 64-29 percent, according to the Democrats’ poll. That puts Richardson way above the 60-percent benchmark that he apparently hopes to use as a springboard for a presidential run.

Here’s my disclaimer: Though I’ve confirmed these poll numbers with more than one source, I have not seen the actual polls and don’t have information on who conducted the polls or how many people were surveyed.

Despite a rather lopsided gubernatorial contest, it looks like the 2006 election may be remembered as a pretty interesting one.