The U.S. Capitol building (Photo by Heath Haussamen)
A new poll finds Republican Heather Wilson and Democrat Martin Heinrich leading in their respective primaries for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Jeff Bingaman.
Wilson had the support of 52 percent of Republicans surveyed to John Sanchez’s 24 percent, Greg Sowards’ 8 percent and Bill English’s 4 percent. Heinrich had the support of 47 percent of Democrats surveyed to Hector Balderas’ 24 percent.
The poll, from the left-leaning group Public Policy Polling, left out little-known Democratic candidate Andres Valdez, though it didn’t leave out equally little-known Republican English.
The polls of 400 “usual” Republican and 400 “usual” Democratic voters were conducted from June 23-26. Each has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.9 percentage points.
Read the poll memo here.
The bottom line for the Democrats, from the poll memo:
“Although Heinrich is weaker among Hispanics, who make up 46% of the Democratic primary electorate, he still leads Balderas 39-36. However, since a majority of Democratic voters are still unwilling to give an opinion of Balderas, Balderas has more room to grow.”
And on the Republican side:
“Wilson leads by strong margins across the Republican ideological spectrum. She leads Sanchez 48-19 among Moderates and 48-31 among very conservatives.”
The GOP survey also asked about presidential candidates and found that Michele Bachmann led with 21 percent to Mitt Romney’s 18 percent, Gary Johnson’s 13 percent, Sarah Palin’s 11 percent, Herman Cain’s 10 percent, Tim Pawlenty’s 7 percent, Newt Gingrich’s 6 percent and Ron Paul’s 5 percent.