{"id":2342,"date":"2007-10-08T07:43:00","date_gmt":"2007-10-08T13:43:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2007\/10\/newcomer-to-battle-wilson-in-senate-primary\/"},"modified":"2007-10-08T07:43:00","modified_gmt":"2007-10-08T13:43:00","slug":"newcomer-to-battle-wilson-in-senate-primary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2007\/10\/newcomer-to-battle-wilson-in-senate-primary\/","title":{"rendered":"Newcomer to battle Wilson in Senate primary"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>A Republican oil man who had previously considered a primary run against U.S. Sen. Pete Domenici<\/a> told a group of 60 people in the Alamogordo<\/st1:city><\/st1:place> area on Saturday that he will run for the seat next year. <\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

That means U.S. Rep. Heather Wilson<\/a> will have a primary battle regardless of whether U.S. Rep. Steve Pearce<\/a> decides to jump into the race for the open Senate seat.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Spiro G. Vassilopoulos made the formal announcement at a pig roast, the Alamogordo Daily News<\/a> is reporting.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

\u201cI will begin my campaign this coming January,\u201d the newspaper quoted him as saying. \u201cAnd I feel my only serious competition will be Stevan Pearce, if he decides to run for the position. Pearce is a fellow oil man and someone I consider to be intellectually honest. I have great admiration for his abilities.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Vassilopoulos is 54 and CEO and part-owner of Port Westward LNG, the newspaper reported. He has never held a political office.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

He publicly considered running against Domenici several months ago, but talk of his potential candidacy died down until news last week that Domenici would not seek another term.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

According to CQMoneyLine<\/a>, Vassilopoulos hasn\u2019t given a federal campaign contribution since 1993, when he gave $250 to Domenici and $1,000 to a Democratic Senate candidate in Texas<\/st1:state><\/st1:place>. In 1999, he gave $500 to Domenici, $333 to U.S. Sen. Jeff Bingaman<\/a>, D-N.M., and $1,000 to a Democratic House candidate from Texas<\/st1:state><\/st1:place>. In 1988, he gave $500 to Bingaman.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Republican oil man who had previously considered a primary run against U.S. Sen. Pete Domenici told a group of 60 people in the Alamogordo area on Saturday that he will run for the seat next year. That means U.S. Rep. Heather Wilson will have a primary battle regardless of whether U.S. Rep. Steve Pearce […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2342","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2342","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=2342"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2342\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}