Steve Pearce, left, and Harry Teague (Photos by Heath Haussamen)
A new poll conducted for the campaign of Republican Steve Pearce has him leading Democrat Harry Teague by 9 points and at the magic 50-percent mark.
The poll has Pearce leading 50 percent to 41 percent with 9 percent undecided. It was conducted by The Tarrance Group on Tuesday and Wednesday, surveyed 350 likely voters, and has a relatively high margin of error of plus or minus 5.2 percentage points.
Pearce is “well positioned to retake the Second Congressional District from Harry Teague,” the polling memo, obtained by NMPolitics.net, states. It adds that another internal Pearce poll conducted a week ago had the Republican leading by 7 points.
“Both findings confirm that Pearce has built a significant advantage over the Democratic incumbent,” the memo states.
The poll comes days after the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee reduced its TV ad buy in the 2nd District race. At the time, the DCCC said the move was based on an assessment of other outside help Teague was receiving. The group said Teague was “in a strong position.”
The new poll may indicate otherwise.
But it’s the first publicly released poll to show Pearce with a lead that’s greater than the poll’s margin of error, so there’s not yet a trend of polling showing this great a swing toward Pearce. As I’ve written, polling has trended in Pearce’s favor in recent weeks, but not this significantly.
An independent poll released 15 days ago had Pearce leading by 4 points. Another independent poll conducted at the same time had Pearce leading by 1 point.
If Pearce’s new poll is accurate, it indicates not only that Pearce’s support is growing, but also that Teague may be losing support. The last two polls had Teague’s support at 42 percent and 44 percent.
Pearce has put Teague on the defensive as the race winds down with ads that attack the Democrat for cutting health insurance for employees of one of his companies and for taking a $3 million bonus from the company. I fact-checked the ad and the situation surrounding it earlier this week.
Update, 4:05 p.m.
I forgot to mention that the poll also has Republican gubernatorial candidate Susana Martinez leading Democrat Diane Denish in the 2nd District by 13 points, 52 percent to 39 percent.