Pearce polling has him gaining in Wilson’s district

U.S. Rep. Steve Pearce has already made significant gains among GOP voters in the Albuquerque area in his bid to replace Pete Domenici in the Senate, at least according to his campaign’s internal polling.

Before he traveled the state earlier this month to formally announce that he’s running for Senate, Pearce’s polling indicated that he had the support of less than 20 percent of GOP voters in the First Congressional District. After the tour, which included an official announcement in Albuquerque that was covered by local television stations, Pearce’s support among Republicans in that district jumped in internal polling to just under 40 percent, a source with knowledge of the situation confirmed.

Pearce was able to make such a quick gain in part because he had a chance to sell himself to GOP voters in a district where he’s largely unknown.

That’s good news for Pearce’s bid, but it doesn’t mean he’s the favorite to win the GOP nomination. The source, a strong backer of Pearce, said the GOP primary race is a 50-50 contest between Pearce and U.S. Rep. Heather Wilson, who currently represents the Albuquerque-area district.

Pearce needs to get 65 percent of the vote in the southern Second Congressional District, and internal polling has him doing better than that, the source said. He needs to win 40 percent in the Albuquerque area, and the two must evenly split the vote in the northern Third Congressional District, where the Pearce campaign hasn’t yet done polling.

To accomplish that, Pearce plans to spend a great deal of his time campaigning in Albuquerque and Farmington, and already spent much of last weekend in the state’s largest city.

Don’t expect Pearce to continue making such quick gains. It only gets more difficult from here. And don’t expect Wilson to sit by and let Pearce make such gains in her district without a fight.

In addition, Wilson is about to embark on her own tour of the state, and will look to make gains in Pearce’s House district. A source close to Wilson also said this is a race that, at this point, could go either way.