{"id":30306,"date":"2011-06-28T11:17:48","date_gmt":"2011-06-28T17:17:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=30306"},"modified":"2011-06-29T02:52:32","modified_gmt":"2011-06-29T08:52:32","slug":"dems-have-%e2%80%98modest%e2%80%99-advantage-in-senate-race-poll-finds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2011\/06\/dems-have-%e2%80%98modest%e2%80%99-advantage-in-senate-race-poll-finds\/","title":{"rendered":"Dems have \u2018modest\u2019 advantage in Senate race, poll finds"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Democratic U.S. Senate candidates Hector Balderas, left, and Martin Heinrich<\/p><\/div>\n

The top two Democratic U.S. Senate candidates have leads in potential matchups with the top three Republican candidates, a new poll finds.<\/p>\n

Democrat Hector Balderas<\/a> leads Republican John Sanchez<\/a> 39 percent to 35 percent, Republican Heather Wilson<\/a> 45 percent to 39 percent, and Republican Greg Sowards<\/a> 42 percent to 28 percent, the poll from the left-leaning group Public Policy Polling finds.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Democrat Martin Heinrich<\/a> leads Sanchez 45 percent to 39 percent, Wilson 47 percent to 42 percent, and Sowards 46 percent to 34 percent.<\/p>\n

The Democrats\u2019 leads are small and close to the margin of error, except against Sowards. The poll, which was conducted between Thursday and Sunday, surveyed 732 New Mexico voters and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.6 percentage points.<\/p>\n

Read the poll memo here<\/a>. And check out Public Policy Polling\u2019s blog posting<\/a> about the poll, which calls the Democrats\u2019 leads \u201cmodest.\u201d<\/p>\n

The poll left out two little-known candidates \u2013 Democrat Andres Valdez and Republican William S. English<\/a>.<\/p>\n

From a news release about the poll:<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile crossover support is either even or to the Republican\u2019s advantage in each matchup, the Democrats have a significant advantage with independents aside from the Sanchez-Balderas race. In a state where Democrats outnumber Republicans 51-32, that\u2019s a recipe for a Democratic victory.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u201cThis race is going to be competitive but it has a clear lean toward the Democrats,\u201d Dean Debnam, president of Public Policy Polling, said in the release. \u201cWilson and Sanchez probably aren\u2019t strong enough candidates to win the seat if Barack Obama simultaneously takes the state by double digits as he did in 2008.\u201d<\/p>\n

The group plans to release additional poll numbers related to the presidential race on Wednesday and the Senate primaries later in the week.<\/p>\n

Update, 11:25 p.m.<\/h3>\n

The National Republican Senatorial Committee<\/a> was quick to put out this response from spokesman Jahan Wilcox:<\/p>\n

\u201cIf this is what a Democrat polling firm\u2019s numbers show, than it\u2019s clear that the New Mexico Senate race will be among the most competitive in the country next year. There will be a clear choice for New Mexicans between either Martin Heinrich, the D.C. establishment\u2019s handpicked candidate, or Hector Balderas, both of whom support job-killing tax hikes and more government spending, versus a common-sense Republican candidate with a pro-jobs agenda.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

UPDATED: The top two Democratic U.S. Senate candidates have leads in potential matchups with the top three Republican candidates, a new poll finds.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[156,116],"class_list":["post-30306","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-2012-election","tag-washington"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30306","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=30306"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30306\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30306"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}