Gary King
Attorney General Gary King has big leads over challenger Matt Chandler in two newly released polls of the race.
I already mentioned the first poll in an article published Monday – an internal poll released by the King campaign that had King, the Democrat, leading the Republican Chandler by 19 percentage points. Today, the Albuquerque Journal released an independent poll that had King leading by 15 percentage points.
The poll released by King’s campaign had him leading with the support of 47 percent of likely voters to Chandler’s 28, with 25 percent of those surveyed undecided. The survey of 600 likely voters was conducted Aug. 2-4 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.
The Journal poll had King leading 48 percent to 33 percent with 19 percent undecided. The survey of 942 likely voters, conducted by Research and Polling Inc. from Aug. 23-27, has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
Matt Chandler
Some highlights from King’s poll, which was released to NMPolitics.net:
“King’s support is not only intense, it is broad-based. King posts an overwhelming 30-point lead among independent voters, the critical subgroup that will determine the outcome of this election. King wins independent voters, 47% to 17%.
“Where King translates his advantage in name identification into votes, Chandler faces an uphill battle in just getting recognized. Roughly two-thirds of voters (65%) are familiar with Gary King.
“Just 17% of voters statewide can say the same for Chandler. This means that before Chandler can make his case against King, he will first have to spend precious resources defining himself.”
And highlights from the Journal poll:
“The poll showed King with the support of 71 percent of the Democrats polled and Chandler with the support of 71 percent of the Republicans polled.
“King also racked up support from 16 percent of the Republicans, while Chandler had 10 percent of Democrats.
“…Among independent voters polled, King had 40 percent and Chandler 27 percent — with 31 percent undecided.
“The candidates were neck-and-neck among Anglo voters: each had 41 percent.
“But there was a big gap between the candidates in the category of Hispanic voters: King had 62 percent of Hispanics polled, and Chandler 22 percent.”
The Journal poll also had King leading in the north-central region of the state and Chandler leading on the east side of the state.
The bottom line, from Journal pollster Brian Sanderoff:
“The challenger hasn’t spent much yet. He’s not well-known around the state. There’s little reason to expect him to perform well among Democrats at this time. Gary’s been around the block, he’s from a prominent political family.”
Updated, 11:45 a.m.
Chandler had this to say about the Journal poll:
“As a career politician with a well-known family name, King has been campaigning for the last three decades. But this election isn’t about family names; it is about fresh direction and the future of our state. And today’s findings reveal that with all of King’s advantages, he still fails to secure the support of the majority of New Mexicans.
“This is largely in part because for far too long, my opponent has turned a blind eye to who-you-know politics and has failed to make good on the promise he made four years ago to aggressively root out corruption. New Mexicans realize that for all of his years in office, this has yet to happen – and isn’t likely to happen during the last two months of King’s administration.
“As I travel across the state, sharing my vision of change and my unwavering commitment to ridding this state of corruption, our message continues to resonate with New Mexicans of all walks of life. With their support, I am confident that on Nov. 2 our state will elect a new attorney general.”