Poll puts Dunn ahead in Republican CD2 primary

A poll conducted for the campaign of Republican Aubrey Dunn has him leading the pack of five men seeking the party’s nomination in the race to replace Steve Pearce in Congress.

The poll places Dunn at 22 percent, Ed Tinsley at 16 percent, C. Earl Greer at 10 percent, Monty Newman at 8 percent and Greg Sowards at 1 percent. Thirty-six percent of the 400 likely Republican primary voters surveyed said they are undecided.

Of the remaining 7 percent surveyed, 6 percent refused to answer the question of who they support, and 1 percent named someone else as their choice. No one else will appear on the ballot in June.

The poll, conducted on Wednesday and Thursday by National Research, Inc., has a margin of error of 4.9 percent. It is the first poll of the Republican Second Congressional District primary race to be released publicly.

You can read the Dunn campaign’s polling memo by clicking here. It found that Dunn “has a more substantial lead among the high-value subgroups” including frequent primary voters, people who have been paying closer attention to the race and people familiar with at least two of the candidates in the race.

The memo also states that Dunn holds “strong leads” in the eastern and oil-patch regions of the district, and is in a “virtual tie” with Tinsley in the Rio Grande Valley – the only region in the district “where Earl Greer has any presence.” The memo states that Greer and Tinsley “split enough votes” in the valley “that Dunn benefits and runs very strongly in that area as well.”

The memo states that the poll results are based on an uninformed question to those surveyed. The campaign declined to release the question that was asked but said there was no pushing done before it was asked.

The memo states that after testing positives and negatives for all “major” candidates in the race, Dunn “takes a substantial lead” in a second, “informed” ballot. The results from that second ballot aren’t included in the memo.

The poll found that Dunn and Tinsley had the highest name identification – both at 55 percent – but Dunn had higher favorable and lower unfavorable ratings than Tinsley. The memo states that Tinsley’s support is soft because it is “a matter of name recognition more than heartfelt support.” The other three candidates all had much lower name identification among those surveyed.

The memo states that Dunn “is well-positioned to win this primary.”

“This is a conservative district that is deeply concerned about border security, illegal immigration and their growing economic uncertainty. On these issues (and a host of others) Dunn’s public stances and priorities correlate and converge with a vast majority of this electorate,” the poll memo states. “They see Dunn as a man of principle who is willing to take on the Washington Republican establishment when the Beltway crowd is out of step with Republican values of Southern New Mexico.”

Analysis

Tinsley has made Las Cruces a focus of his campaign, and so has Greer. Sowards is from Las Cruces and also draws his support from this area. Add to that the fact that Newman got off to a late start and secured the support of fewer than 20 percent of delegates at the March 15 preprimary nominating convention, and I’m not surprised that Dunn is ahead in this poll. Dunn’s strategy for winning the primary doesn’t focus on Las Cruces or Newman’s hometown of Hobbs.

The fact that no other GOP CD2 campaign has released polling could mean that other campaigns haven’t done any, but with four other candidates in the race, that isn’t likely. It’s also possible that other campaigns have done polling but didn’t like the results, so they didn’t release the polls.

Dunn appears to be in a strong position. However, the road ahead only gets tougher for him. Tinsley will match or best him in spending and has already covered Las Cruces in signs and ordered TV time on Albuquerque stations. Newman will spend a great deal of money. So will Sowards, who unveiled his first campaign ad in the Las Cruces Sun-News this weekend. Greer has put together a strong grassroots campaign.

Expect all five candidates to draw some of the undecideds into their camps in the coming weeks.

Update, 4:25 p.m.

A source close to the Tinsley campaign had this to say:

“One should always be cautious in reading too much into any campaign’s polling and their selective release of information that is flattering to the candidate,” the source said. “There will only be one poll that’s important in this primary. That will take place on June 3. The undecideds are winning this race. The Dunn memo confirms what the Tinsley campaign already knows – this is a wide open race for the nomination.”

Update, 6:30 p.m.

The Dunn campaign released the question that led to the poll results. Here it is:

“Now thinking about the Republican primary for Congress in this district. For whom would you vote between (the candidates names were randomized)?” If a choice was made, the person surveyed was then asked, “Would that be definitely, or just probably?” If the person was undecided, they were asked, “Who are you leaning toward?”