{"id":17767,"date":"2010-05-26T08:17:39","date_gmt":"2010-05-26T14:17:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=17767"},"modified":"2010-05-26T15:13:55","modified_gmt":"2010-05-26T21:13:55","slug":"martinez-pulls-ahead-of-weh-poll-finds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2010\/05\/martinez-pulls-ahead-of-weh-poll-finds\/","title":{"rendered":"Martinez pulls ahead of Weh, poll finds"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Susana Martinez<\/p><\/div>\n

Susana Martinez<\/a> has an 11-point lead over Allen Weh<\/a> in the Republican gubernatorial primary race, a new poll shows.<\/p>\n

The poll found Martinez with 40.8 percent to Weh\u2019s 30 percent. Doug Turner<\/a> had the support of 8.8 percent of those surveyed, while Pete Domenici Jr.<\/a> had 8.2 percent and Janice Arnold-Jones<\/a> had 4.1 percent, according to the polling memo<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The number of undecideds \u2013 8 percent \u2013 was less than the margin of Martinez\u2019s lead.<\/p>\n

The poll, conducted by Dialing Services LLC of Roswell for New Mexico Politics With Joe Monahan<\/a>, surveyed 771 likely Republican primary voters on Tuesday evening. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.53 percentage points.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Allen Weh<\/p><\/div>\n

Martinez led among men 47 percent to 28 percent, among Anglos 40 percent to 32 percent, and among Hispanics 62 percent to 20 percent. She led in all age ranges, all three congressional districts and in all regions of the state except the southeast corner. Martinez even led in Weh\u2019s hometown of Albuquerque.<\/p>\n

Weh led among women, 35 percent to 30 percent.<\/p>\n

The new poll shows that Martinez has surged in the last two weeks. On May 16, the Albuquerque Journal released its poll<\/a> that showed Weh leading Martinez 31 percent to 30 percent, with the other three candidates all at 10 percent or less.<\/p>\n

Since then Martinez has been endorsed by Sarah Palin<\/a> and also gotten the backing of the state\u2019s three largest newspapers \u2013 the Albuquerque Journal<\/a>, Las Cruces Sun-News<\/a> and Santa Fe New Mexican<\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The race has also become a negative, bitter contest between Martinez and Weh since then, and the fact that the state GOP chairman has called Weh out<\/a> for dishonest ads has received a lot of attention.<\/p>\n

A fight over amnesty<\/h3>\n

Martinez\u2019s hard-line stance on immigration is apparently resonating with GOP voters \u2013 and men in particular \u2013 while Weh\u2019s attempt to defend himself from her accusation that he supported amnesty hasn\u2019t worked.<\/p>\n

By striking first<\/a> \u2013 even after telling a radio show host she wouldn\u2019t go negative \u2013 Martinez has managed to define Weh on what is turning out to be a key issue in the race, thanks to the controversy over Arizona\u2019s new immigration law.<\/p>\n

Weh has continued to insist that he wasn\u2019t supporting amnesty when he backed President Bush\u2019s immigration reform proposal in 2007. He supported a plan that would have required anyone here illegally who wanted to start down the path of becoming a citizen to first pay a fine and back taxes and meet other requirements.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Karl Rove<\/p><\/div>\n

One of Bush\u2019s closest advisers, Karl Rove<\/a>, came to Weh\u2019s aid on Tuesday with a robocall<\/a> to GOP voters.<\/p>\n

\u201cHello, this is Karl Rove calling to set the record straight on border security,\u201d Rove says in the call. \u201cAllen Weh is tough as nails on illegal immigration. The negative ads against him simply aren\u2019t true. Allen has never supported amnesty and never will.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t be misled by negative ads. Allen Weh is the right choice,\u201d Rove says at the end of the robocall, which doesn\u2019t state who paid for it (even though state law requires such a disclaimer).<\/p>\n

Weh knows Rove well. When Weh pushed the White House to fire former U.S. Attorney David Iglesias, Rove was one of two people there he called<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Todd Garrison<\/p><\/div>\n

The Martinez campaign was quick to respond to Rove\u2019s robocall on Tuesday with its own call<\/a> from Do\u00f1a Ana County Sheriff Todd Garrison<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou probably just got called by Allen Weh\u2019s Washington friend defending him for supporting amnesty,\u201d Garrison says on the robocall. \u201cAllen Weh admitting supporting the plan to legalize 13 million illegal immigrants, and now those in Washington who pushed it are defending Weh.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWeh and his friends in Washington can say what they want,\u201d Garrison says, \u201cbut as a New Mexico border sheriff, take it from me: It\u2019s amnesty and that\u2019s exactly what Allen Weh supported.\u201d<\/p>\n

That robocall states that it was paid for by the Martinez campaign.<\/p>\n

If the new poll is any indication, Weh appears to have already lost the argument over whether he supported amnesty. He also lost the fight over whether his ads were honest. With a week to go, he\u2019s going to have to find another issue to shift the debate away from amnesty and his dishonest ads.<\/p>\n

Other races<\/h3>\n

The new poll also surveyed the GOP lieutenant governor and land commissioner races. Monahan said John Sanchez<\/a> led the lieutenant governor\u2019s race with 33 percent to Kent Cravens\u2019<\/a> 27 percent and Brian Moore\u2019s<\/a> 20 percent, with 21 percent undecided. Monahan said Matt Rush<\/a> led the land commissioner\u2019s race with 37 percent to Bob Cornelius\u2019<\/a> 20 percent, with 43 percent undecided.<\/p>\n

Monahan did not provide the polling memos for those races.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Susana Martinez has an 11-point lead over Allen Weh in the Republican gubernatorial primary race, a new poll shows. Martinez\u2019s hard-line stance on immigration is apparently resonating, while Weh\u2019s attempt to defend himself from her accusation that he supported amnesty hasn\u2019t worked.<\/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":[108,140,107],"class_list":["post-17767","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","category-uncategorized","tag-2010-election","tag-border-and-immigration","tag-roundhouse"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17767","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=17767"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17767\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17767"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17767"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17767"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}