{"id":13690,"date":"2010-02-24T20:53:29","date_gmt":"2010-02-25T03:53:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=13690"},"modified":"2010-02-25T16:39:51","modified_gmt":"2010-02-25T23:39:51","slug":"polling-mania-hits-new-mexico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2010\/02\/polling-mania-hits-new-mexico\/","title":{"rendered":"Polling mania hits New Mexico"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Lt. Gov. Diane Denish (Photo by Heath Haussamen)<\/p><\/div>\n

Denish leads each of the five Republican gubernatorial candidates in survey released today<\/h4>\n

The first poll testing Republican gubernatorial hopefuls against Democratic candidate Diane Denish<\/a> set off a great deal of debate among New Mexico\u2019s political class today, and the chatter promises to continue Thursday with the release of polls of the state\u2019s congressional races.<\/p>\n

The Public Policy Polling<\/a> survey found the lieutenant governor with leads against each of the five Republicans vying for the right to take her on in November. The Republican who did best against Denish was Pete Domenici Jr.<\/a>, who trailed by 5 percentage points, with 40 percent to Denish\u2019s 45 percent.<\/p>\n

Denish had a 47-33 percent lead over Janice Arnold-Jones<\/a>, a 46-32 percent lead over both Susana Martinez<\/a> and Doug Turner<\/a> and a 48-30 percent lead over Allen Weh<\/a> in the poll conducted by the Democratic firm.<\/p>\n

The survey of 990 registered voters in New Mexico was conducted between Feb. 18 and 20 and has a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points.<\/p>\n

Denish\u2019s lead against each of the GOP candidates comes in spite of the fact that only 28 percent of those surveyed said they approve of the job Gov. Bill Richardson<\/a> is doing. In addition, President Barack Obama<\/a> had the approval of 45 percent of those surveyed but the disapproval of 48 percent.<\/p>\n

\u201cGiven Obama and Richardson\u2019s low levels of popularity, Diane Denish is doing pretty well,\u201d Dean Debnam, president of Public Policy Polling, said in the polling memo<\/a>. \u201cBut a contest with Domenici certainly looks like it could be competitive.\u201d<\/p>\n

Domenici agreed.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Domenici campaign is ecstatic over the results of this poll,\u201d Campaign Director Doug Antoon said. \u201cIf viewed purely scientifically, it is a\u00a0death knell\u00a0for 8-year incumbent Democrat\u00a0Diane Denish. She should have a double-digit lead over all other opponents at this time. The opposite is true.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dem support makes Denish \u2018the early frontrunner\u2019<\/h3>\n

According to the polling company\u2019s blog<\/a>, \u201cIndependents are turning toward the GOP in New Mexico, reflecting the trends we are seeing on the national level. Denish trails with them in 4 of 5 potential contests, including a 15 point deficit against Domenici.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are still a lot more Democrats than Republicans in the state though and Denish\u2019s solid popularity with her own party\u2019s voters makes her the early front runner,\u201d the blog states.<\/p>\n

Denish was the only gubernatorial candidate in the poll who had more people say they view her favorably than unfavorably. That, coupled with her lead over each GOP candidate in the poll, had the Denish campaign releasing a positive statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven in this hostile political climate,\u00a0Diane Denish\u00a0holds a lead against all of her potential opponents. That\u2019s because New Mexicans view her as an independent voice and a champion for middle-class families and their jobs,\u201d said Deputy Campaign Manager Chris\u00a0Cervini.<\/p>\n

Martinez, state GOP pounce<\/h3>\n

Though Domenici touted the poll, other Republicans were quick to pounce on it. The Martinez campaign released a \u201cmemo on polls\u201d<\/a> and urged taking early surveys like it \u201cwith a grain of salt.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMany, like the one released today by a liberal Democratic polling firm based in North Carolina, use questionable methodology by employing auto-dialers rather than live interviewers,\u201d the memo states. \u201cThis makes quality control exceedingly difficult, as there is no mechanism to verify the survey is being conducted among actual voters.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Martinez memo also took issue with the fact that the poll showed high negative opinions of all the Republican candidates, stating that it \u201cis not believable that they have achieved this net negative rating without a campaign having been meaningfully launched against them.\u201d<\/p>\n

And the state GOP released its own poll that showed a different result. The survey, conducted by the GOP polling firm Public Opinion Strategies<\/a>, found that 44 percent of likely voters were likely to vote for the Republican gubernatorial candidate, while 40 percent said they were likely to vote for the Democratic candidate.<\/p>\n

The poll didn\u2019t use candidate names, and it did use live interviews, not automation, the GOP said. The survey of 500 likely voters, conducted Jan. 25-27, had a margin of error of 4.38 percent.<\/p>\n

\u201cInternal polling data seriously challenges the findings released today,\u201d Ryan Cangiolosi, executive director of the state GOP, said in a news release.\u00a0\u201cAnd we remain confident that the Republican message of stamping out corruption and restoring fiscal responsibility will resonate with voters on\u00a0Election Day.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lots of polls<\/h3>\n

The Public Policy Polling survey released today also found that both of New Mexico\u2019s U.S. senators \u2013 Democrats Jeff Bingaman<\/a> and Tom Udall<\/a> \u2013 had the approval of 48 percent of those surveyed, while 36 percent said they didn\u2019t approve of the senators.<\/p>\n

The state has been inundated with political polls in recent days. Late last week a New Mexico State University government professor released a poll of the GOP gubernatorial primary<\/a> conducted by his class. And Republican 2nd Congressional District candidate Steve Pearce<\/a> released a poll showing him with a slight lead<\/a> in that race.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, Public Policy Polling will release polling on that and the state\u2019s other congressional races.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The first poll testing Republican gubernatorial hopefuls against Democratic candidate Diane Denish set off a great deal of debate among New Mexico\u2019s political class today, and the chatter promises to continue Thursday with the release of polls of the state\u2019s congressional races.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,1],"tags":[108,107],"class_list":["post-13690","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","category-uncategorized","tag-2010-election","tag-roundhouse"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13690","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13690"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13690\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}