Preprimaries reveal several tight contests

Steve Pearce was certainly the winner at Saturday’s U.S. Senate Republican preprimary nominating convention, coming out nine points ahead of opponent Heather Wilson, but the impact is much more complicated than that.

Pearce boldly proclaimed his win a “huge upset” in a news release following the convention. In some ways it was. Wilson has a history of winning even when the odds are against her, as they were in this preprimary race, and many expected a strong showing from her. A few even expected an upset win by Wilson.

But Pearce set the bar very high for himself weeks ago in a news release claiming that he was on the verge of a “huge” victory in the preprimary. The 54.5 percent of votes he received didn’t meet the expectations many Republicans had after he set the bar so high.

Before Pearce’s Feb. 26 news release claiming that he was on the verge of a huge win, many New Mexico Republicans expected a roughly 55-45 victory by Pearce. His news release raised the expectations among his supporters and frightened some Wilson backers. Then, things turned out as many Republicans expected before the news release.

The victory allowed Pearce to claim a huge victory, which he did. The fact that it wasn’t by a larger margin after Pearce made such a bold declaration allowed Wilson to declare victory, which she did. At the start of the sprint to the primary, don’t count either candidate out. Pearce and Wilson both have a realistic shot of winning this race.

Second Congressional District

Saturday’s preprimaries revealed that the Second Congressional District is the most interesting House race to watch because there are several candidates from both parties who have a realistic shot at winning the race. Bill McCamley’s big win on the Democratic side solidified the opinion already held by many that there are two viable candidates in this race, and either McCamley or Harry Teague could win the primary. Ultimately, McCamley’s 49 percent at the preprimary equaled the 36 percent for Teague and 13 percent for Al Kissling combined.

Though many expected McCamley to win the preprimary because he had been in the race and organizing much longer than Teague, others expected a stronger showing from Teague, who also had months to organize in advance of the preprimary and had the active support of Lt. Gov. Diane Denish.

Look for McCamley to continue to run a leaner ship than the state’s other top-tier congressional candidates, spending his respectable amount of money smartly, but look for Teague to outspend him 2-1 in the coming months. McCamley is seeking a financial boost off his preprimary win by attempting to raise $30,000 by April 1 – his 30th birthday.

On the Republican side, Aubrey Dunn captured a victory that, several weeks ago, was totally unexpected. That makes him a major player in the race. C. Earl Greer did the same. At the same time, many thought Ed Tinsley might not even reach 20 percent after seeing the strong organization of the Dunn and Greer campaigns in action in recent weeks, but Tinsley easily topped that number and tied Greer in delegate votes.

Monty Newman, like others who failed to get 20 percent at the conventions, is going to have to submit signatures to stay in the race, and we’ll know in a little more than a week whether he and others are successful at doing that. Regardless, this is a tight contest with several viable candidates. It’s fascinating.

As I’ve disclosed before, I’m friends with McCamley. Click here to read about that.

First Congressional District

The huge win by Darren White in the Republican First Congressional District preprimary race was expected. So was the huge win in the Democratic race by Martin Heinrich. The only real surprise in this district was that Michelle Lujan Grisham, not Rebecca Vigil-Giron, emerged as the alternative to Heinrich in the Democratic race. Though her 28 percent was doubled by Heinrich’s 56 percent at the convention, Grisham’s showing was still impressive, and she’s now a candidate to watch.

Still, Heinrich remains, by far, the favorite to win the Democratic primary.

Third Congressional District

Ben R. Luján’s 40-percent support in the Democratic Third Congressional District preprimary race was the lowest of any victor in either party in the congressional preprimaries. He topped Don Wiviott by 10 points.

That reveals a few things: Luján has an impressive level of support. But there are also a lot of Democrats in Northern New Mexico who don’t want him to be their next congressman. Several weeks ago, the question was whether Wiviott would even get 20 percent and qualify for the ballot. Of all the candidates in the congressional races who were in that uncertain position, Wiviott’s showing on Saturday was the strongest.

Look for this to be a tight race between the two candidates.

On the Republican side, there was little surprise that Marco Gonzales topped Daniel East but both qualified for the ballot.

The bottom line

The GOP U.S. Senate primary remains the most interesting race to watch, but the Second Congressional District race is shaping up to be incredibly interesting and unpredictable on both sides. The Third Congressional District Democratic primary is also a race to watch.

The First Congressional District Democratic and Third Congressional District Republican primaries could heat up as well. This remains an unpredictable and incredible election season in New Mexico.