Steve Pearce, left, and Harry Teague (Photos by Heath Haussamen)
A new, independent poll shows Republican Steve Pearce leading Democrat Harry Teague by 4 points in the 2nd Congressional District race.
The poll had Pearce leading Teague 46 percent to 42 percent, with 10 percent undecided, 1 percent picking another candidate and 1 percent saying they would not vote. It was conducted Sept. 28-30 by Penn Schoen Berland for the D.C. publication The Hill, surveyed 401 likely voters, and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.9 percentage points.
You can read the polling memo here.
Interestingly, the poll was conducted at the same time that another poll conducted for the Albuquerque Journal found Pearce leading by 1 point. The Journal poll was conducted Sept. 27-30.
The new poll conducted for The Hill found Pearce winning over twice as many Democrats as Teague is Republicans, 16 percent to 8 percent.
“Teague’s problem is his base,” The Hill’s article on its poll states. “Pearce is peeling away 16 percent of Democrats. But Teague is winning independents 43 percent to 41. Only 86 percent of likely Democratic voters are committed to turning out on Election Day, while 97 percent of likely GOP voters said they would be at the polls.”
“The path to victory for Teague could be to tap into undecided voters — 39 percent are Democrats and 21 percent are independents,” the article states. “To do that, he’ll have to overcome a traditional skepticism about one-party control that is causing some undecided voters to say they prefer a divided government.”
The Hill’s poll of the 2nd District was part of a larger survey of 12 hotly contested races across the nation. Read about the larger survey here.