{"id":3050,"date":"2008-04-01T15:47:00","date_gmt":"2008-04-01T21:47:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2008\/04\/poll-puts-dunn-ahead-in-republican-cd2-primary\/"},"modified":"2008-04-01T15:47:00","modified_gmt":"2008-04-01T21:47:00","slug":"poll-puts-dunn-ahead-in-republican-cd2-primary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2008\/04\/poll-puts-dunn-ahead-in-republican-cd2-primary\/","title":{"rendered":"Poll puts Dunn ahead in Republican CD2 primary"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>A poll conducted for the campaign of Republican Aubrey Dunn<\/a> has him leading the pack of five men seeking the party\u2019s nomination in the race to replace Steve Pearce<\/a> in Congress. <\/p>\n

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

The poll places Dunn at 22 percent, Ed Tinsley<\/a> at 16 percent, C. Earl Greer<\/a> at 10 percent, Monty Newman<\/a> at 8 percent and Greg Sowards<\/a> at 1 percent. Thirty-six percent of the 400 likely Republican primary voters surveyed said they are undecided.<\/p>\n

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

Of the remaining 7 percent surveyed, 6 percent refused to answer the question of who they support, and 1 percent named someone else as their choice. No one else will appear on the ballot in June.<\/p>\n

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

The poll, conducted on Wednesday and Thursday by National Research, Inc.<\/a>, has a margin of error of 4.9 percent. It is the first poll of the Republican Second Congressional District primary race to be released publicly.<\/p>\n

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

You can read the Dunn campaign\u2019s polling memo by clicking here<\/a>. It found that Dunn \u201chas a more substantial lead among the high-value subgroups\u201d including frequent primary voters, people who have been paying closer attention to the race and people familiar with at least two of the candidates in the race.<\/p>\n

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

The memo also states that Dunn holds \u201cstrong leads\u201d in the eastern and oil-patch regions of the district, and is in a \u201cvirtual tie\u201d with Tinsley in the Rio Grande<\/st1:placename> Valley<\/st1:placetype><\/st1:place> \u2013 the only region in the district \u201cwhere Earl Greer has any presence.\u201d The memo states that Greer and Tinsley \u201csplit enough votes\u201d in the valley \u201cthat Dunn benefits and runs very strongly in that area as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

The memo states that the poll results are based on an uninformed question to those surveyed. The campaign declined to release the question that was asked but said there was no pushing done before it was asked.<\/p>\n

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

The memo states that after testing positives and negatives for all \u201cmajor\u201d candidates in the race, Dunn \u201ctakes a substantial lead\u201d in a second, \u201cinformed\u201d ballot. The results from that second ballot aren\u2019t included in the memo.<\/p>\n

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

The poll found that Dunn and Tinsley had the highest name identification \u2013 both at 55 percent \u2013 but Dunn had higher favorable and lower unfavorable ratings than Tinsley. The memo states that Tinsley\u2019s support is soft because it is \u201ca matter of name recognition more than heartfelt support.\u201d The other three candidates all had much lower name identification among those surveyed.<\/p>\n

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

The memo states that Dunn \u201cis well-positioned to win this primary.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

\u201cThis is a conservative district that is deeply concerned about border security, illegal immigration and their growing economic uncertainty. On these issues (and a host of others) Dunn\u2019s public stances and priorities correlate and converge with a vast majority of this electorate,\u201d the poll memo states. \u201cThey see Dunn as a man of principle who is willing to take on the Washington Republican establishment when the Beltway crowd is out of step with Republican values of Southern New Mexico<\/st1:place>.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

Analysis<\/span><\/p>\n

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

Tinsley has made Las Cruces a focus of his campaign, and so has Greer. Sowards is from Las Cruces<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> and also draws his support from this area. Add to that the fact that Newman got off to a late start and secured the support of fewer than 20 percent of delegates at the March 15 preprimary nominating convention, and I\u2019m not surprised that Dunn is ahead in this poll. Dunn\u2019s strategy for winning the primary doesn\u2019t focus on Las Cruces<\/st1:city> or Newman\u2019s hometown of Hobbs<\/st1:city><\/st1:place>.<\/p>\n

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

The fact that no other GOP CD2 campaign has released polling could mean that other campaigns haven\u2019t done any, but with four other candidates in the race, that isn\u2019t likely. It\u2019s also possible that other campaigns have done polling but didn\u2019t like the results, so they didn\u2019t release the polls.<\/p>\n

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

Dunn appears to be in a strong position. However, the road ahead only gets tougher for him. Tinsley will match or best him in spending and has already covered Las Cruces<\/st1:city> in signs and ordered TV time on Albuquerque<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> stations. Newman will spend a great deal of money. So will Sowards, who unveiled his first campaign ad in the Las Cruces Sun-News<\/a> this weekend. Greer has put together a strong grassroots campaign.<\/p>\n

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

Expect all five candidates to draw some of the undecideds into their camps in the coming weeks.<\/p>\n

\n

Update, 4:25 p.m.<\/p>\n

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

A source close to the Tinsley campaign had this to say:<\/p>\n

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

\u201cOne should always be cautious in reading too much into any campaign\u2019s polling and their selective release of information that is flattering to the candidate,\u201d the source said. \u201cThere will only be one poll that\u2019s important in this primary. That will take place on June 3. The undecideds are winning this race. <\/span>The Dunn memo confirms what the Tinsley campaign already knows \u2013 this is a wide open race for the nomination.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

Update, 6:30 p.m.<\/p>\n

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

The Dunn campaign released the question that led to the poll results. Here it is:<\/p>\n

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

\u201cNow thinking about the Republican primary for Congress in this district. For whom would you vote between (the candidates names were randomized)?\u201d If a choice was made, the person surveyed was then asked, \u201cWould that be definitely, or just probably?\u201d If the person was undecided, they were asked, \u201cWho are you leaning toward?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A poll conducted for the campaign of Republican Aubrey Dunn has him leading the pack of five men seeking the party\u2019s nomination in the race to replace Steve Pearce in Congress. The poll places Dunn at 22 percent, Ed Tinsley at 16 percent, C. Earl Greer at 10 percent, Monty Newman at 8 percent and […]<\/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-3050","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3050","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=3050"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3050\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3050"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3050"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3050"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}