{"id":13717,"date":"2010-02-25T11:20:49","date_gmt":"2010-02-25T18:20:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=13717"},"modified":"2010-02-26T07:10:20","modified_gmt":"2010-02-26T14:10:20","slug":"polls-show-pearce-heinrich-lujan-ahead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2010\/02\/polls-show-pearce-heinrich-lujan-ahead\/","title":{"rendered":"Polls show Pearce, Heinrich, Luj\u00e1n ahead"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Steve Pearce, left, and Harry Teague (Photos by Heath Haussamen)<\/p><\/div>\n

CD2 remains up in the air; Heinrich has comfortable lead but it\u2019s early; Luj\u00e1n appears surprisingly vulnerable<\/h4>\n

New polls of the state\u2019s three congressional races show a tight contest in the 2nd Congressional District, Democratic Rep. Martin Heinrich<\/a> with a significant lead over Republican challenger Jon Barela<\/a> in the 1st District and Democratic Rep. Ben Ray Luj\u00e1n<\/a> surprisingly vulnerable in the 3rd District.<\/p>\n

In the 2nd District \u2013 one of the hottest House races in the nation \u2013 Republican challenger Steve Pearce<\/a> leads incumbent Democrat Harry Teague<\/a> by 2 percentage points, 43-41 percent, with 16 percent undecided.<\/p>\n

Teague had the approval of 41 percent of those surveyed, while 36 percent said they disapprove of the job he\u2019s doing and 22 percent said they aren\u2019t sure. Meanwhile, Pearce was viewed favorably by 43 percent and unfavorably by 31 percent, with 26 percent saying they weren\u2019t sure.<\/p>\n

The survey of 400 voters was conducted from Feb. 18-20 and has a margin of error of 4.9 percentage points.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Martin Heinrich<\/p><\/div>\n

In the 1st District race, Heinrich was up 9 percentage points, 45-36 percent, with 19 percent undecided.<\/p>\n

Heinrich had the approval of 40 percent of those surveyed, while 38 percent said they disapprove of the job he\u2019s doing and 23 percent said they weren\u2019t sure. Meanwhile, Barela remains largely unknown. He was viewed favorably by 13 percent and unfavorably by 15 percent, with 72 percent saying they were not sure.<\/p>\n

In the 3rd District race, Luj\u00e1n was up six points over one of two Republicans vying for the right to take him on in November \u2013 Tom Mullins<\/a> \u2013 and eight points over the other \u2013 Adam Kokesh<\/a>. Luj\u00e1n led Kokesh 40-32 percent, with 28 percent undecided, and led Mullins 42-36 percent, with 22 percent undecided.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Ben Ray Luj\u00e1n<\/p><\/div>\n

Luj\u00e1n had the approval of 31 percent of those surveyed, while 40 percent said they disapprove and 29 percent said they were not sure.<\/p>\n

Mullins and Kokesh remain largely unknown. Mullins was viewed favorably by 10 percent and unfavorably by 8 percent, with 81 percent saying they don\u2019t know. Kokesh was viewed favorably by 4 percent and unfavorably by 17 percent, with 79 percent saying they don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n

The 3rd District numbers are surprising because it\u2019s an overwhelmingly Democratic district, and a race most people haven\u2019t given much attention.<\/p>\n

The 1st and 3rd district surveys had the same sample size and margin of error as the 2nd District poll.<\/p>\n

Heinrich, Luj\u00e1n \u2018should be good,\u2019 Teague \u2018will have a hard time\u2019<\/h3>\n

The polls were conducted by the Democratic firm Public Policy Polling<\/a>. Despite Luj\u00e1n\u2019s negatives, the polling memo states that he, like Heinrich, should be headed toward re-election.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026 the district\u2019s overwhelmingly Democratic nature should make it easy for (Luj\u00e1n) to overcome that,\u201d the memo states. \u201cRepublicans are more unified in their dislike for him than Democrats are in their support.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMartin Heinrich and Ben Ray Lujan look like they should be good for reelection,\u201d Dean Debnam, president of Public Policy Polling, said in the memo. \u201cHarry Teague has built a good amount of support given how conservative his district is, but will have a hard time hanging on in this political climate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Check out the full polling memo<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

New polls of the state\u2019s three congressional races show a tight contest in the 2nd Congressional District, Democratic Rep. Martin Heinrich with a significant lead over Republican challenger Jon Barela in the 1st District and Democratic Rep. Ben Ray Luj\u00e1n surprisingly vulnerable in the 3rd District.<\/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":[108,116],"class_list":["post-13717","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","category-uncategorized","tag-2010-election","tag-washington"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13717","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=13717"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13717\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}