{"id":2522,"date":"2007-11-10T20:14:00","date_gmt":"2007-11-11T02:14:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2007\/11\/udall-confirms-senate-run-wiviott-to-seek-house-seat\/"},"modified":"2007-11-10T20:14:00","modified_gmt":"2007-11-11T02:14:00","slug":"udall-confirms-senate-run-wiviott-to-seek-house-seat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2007\/11\/udall-confirms-senate-run-wiviott-to-seek-house-seat\/","title":{"rendered":"Udall confirms Senate run; Wiviott to seek House seat"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>The chief of staff to U.S. Rep. Tom Udall<\/a>, D-N.M., confirmed today that the congressman will run for the Senate seat being vacated next year by Pete Domenici<\/a>. <\/p>\n

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

Meanwhile, Democrats Don Wiviott<\/a> and Jim Hannan<\/a> will drop out of the Senate race as a result of Udall\u2019s decision. Wiviott plans to run for the House seat Udall will be vacating.<\/p>\n

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

The confirmation of Udall\u2019s candidacy comes a day after I reported<\/a> that Udall had told a number of Democratic insiders he\u2019s running for Senate.<\/p>\n

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

\u201cHe\u2019s definitely running,\u201d Tom Nagle, Udall\u2019s chief of staff, told the Associated Press<\/a> today.<\/p>\n

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

Nagle said Udall plans to make a formal announcement during Congress\u2019 Thanksgiving recess.<\/p>\n

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

Udall will face Albuquerque Mayor Martin Ch\u00e1vez<\/a> and lesser-known Democrat Leland Lehrman<\/a> in a Senate primary. While Wiviott and Hannan said they\u2019ll leave the race, Lehrman said he won\u2019t back Udall\u2019s candidacy because Udall doesn\u2019t support impeachment proceedings against Vice President Dick Cheney<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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

\u201cAlthough his votes on the environment and civil liberties make us all proud, his Washingtonian willingness to avoid tough issues means that he cannot be trusted with the leadership role a U.S.<\/st1:place><\/st1:country-region> senator must take,\u201d Lehrman said.<\/p>\n

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

\"\"<\/a>Wiviott said Udall is a friend, in addition to being his congressman. He will defer to him in the Senate race, but said he plans, in running for Udall\u2019s House seat, to stay in the fight to end the Iraq<\/st1:place><\/st1:country-region> war, protect the environment and improve the education system.<\/p>\n

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

\u201cYou have to have the courage of your convictions. That\u2019s why I started in this. That\u2019s why I remain in it,\u201d Wiviott said. \u201cI\u2019m committed to either raise or spend whatever it takes to win (the House race).\u201d<\/p>\n

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

Hannan has said for weeks that he wouldn\u2019t run against Udall, and said on Friday that, if Udall was running, he would \u201cimmediately withdraw from the race.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

Hannan once worked for the late U.S. Rep. Mo Udall<\/a>, D-Ariz. and an uncle of Tom Udall.<\/p>\n

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

\u2018Too important not to run\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

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

Tom Udall originally said he would not run for the Senate seat, in part because he holds a powerful spot on the House Appropriations Committee. But Washington<\/st1:state> insiders and a grassroots effort in New Mexico<\/st1:place><\/st1:state> convinced him to change his mind.<\/p>\n

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

\u201cHe thinks it\u2019s too important not to run for the Senate,\u201d Nagle told the Associated Press. \u201cA lot of the good things we\u2019ve been able to do (in the House) don\u2019t go anywhere in the Senate.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

Alex Flores, a former Udall intern who started DraftUdall.com<\/a>, a Web site that helped push Udall to reconsider, said he was excited by today\u2019s announcement.<\/p>\n

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

\u201cThis is a great day for New Mexico<\/st1:state>,\u201d Flores<\/st1:place> said in a news release. \u201cBut it will be an even greater day next November when New Mexico<\/st1:place><\/st1:state> sends Tom Udall to the United States Senate. Now comes the hard work of ensuring that Tom Udall is our democratic nominee and the next senator from New Mexico, and the groundswell of support behind the draft Udall movement will be there every step of the way to help.\u201d <\/p>\n

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

The group has already secured pledges of $30,000 for Udall\u2019s Senate run. At the end of September, Udall had about $800,000 on-hand for his House re-election campaign, and he can transfer all of it to his Senate campaign.<\/p>\n

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

Wiviott won\u2019t be the only one seeking to replace Udall in the House. As many as a dozen Democrats had been seriously considering running for his House seat if he decided to run for Senate. Expect a number of candidate announcements in the coming days.<\/p>\n

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

Udall campaign releases internal polling<\/span><\/p>\n

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

The Udall campaign also released today internal polling<\/a> that confirms what previous polls have shown: At this stage in the contest, Udall has a strong advantage over the Republicans in the race, U.S. Reps. Steve Pearce<\/a> and Heather Wilson<\/a>, while Ch\u00e1vez is running tight races against both.<\/p>\n

The internal poll found Udall with a 16-point advantage over Wilson<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> and a 17-point advantage over Pearce. Ch\u00e1vez, by comparison, had a four-point advantage over Wilson<\/st1:place><\/st1:city>, while Pearce had a four-point advantage over Ch\u00e1vez.<\/p>\n

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

In a poll of a potential primary, Udall had the support of 50 percent of likely Democratic primary voters, while Ch\u00e1vez had 30 percent and Wiviott had 2 percent.<\/p>\n

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

The poll, conducted by Fairbank, Maslin, Maullin and Associates between Oct. 23 and 27, surveyed 500 likely general election voters and 439 likely Democratic primary voters. The margin of error for the general-election survey was 4.3 percent, while it was 4.6 percent for the primary survey.<\/p>\n

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

\u201cThe results are clear in demonstrating that Tom Udall is the stronger candidate for U.S. Senate,\u201d the polling company concludes. \u201cHis considerable popularity among voters across the political spectrum gives him strong leads in the general election, regardless of Republican opponent. In the Democratic primary, Udall would need to be considerably outspent for Ch\u00e1vez to overcome Udall\u2019s popularity and his own negatives.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The chief of staff to U.S. Rep. Tom Udall, D-N.M., confirmed today that the congressman will run for the Senate seat being vacated next year by Pete Domenici. Meanwhile, Democrats Don Wiviott and Jim Hannan will drop out of the Senate race as a result of Udall\u2019s decision. Wiviott plans to run for the House […]<\/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-2522","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2522","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=2522"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2522\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}