{"id":40202,"date":"2012-05-22T16:21:44","date_gmt":"2012-05-22T22:21:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=40202"},"modified":"2012-05-23T06:22:19","modified_gmt":"2012-05-23T12:22:19","slug":"anyone-can-win-the-cd1-democratic-primary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2012\/05\/anyone-can-win-the-cd1-democratic-primary\/","title":{"rendered":"Anyone can win the CD1 Democratic primary"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Heath<\/a>

Heath Haussamen<\/p><\/div>\n

What to make of all the polls released today? As far as I\u2019m concerned, this race could be roughly tied at a third apiece on June 5.<\/h4>\n

Until today, the public hadn\u2019t seen a single poll of the three-way 1st Congressional District Democratic primary race between Marty Ch\u00e1vez<\/a>, Michelle Lujan Grisham<\/a> and Eric Griego<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Then the floodgates opened.<\/p>\n

Grisham released a poll this morning that had her and Griego tied at 35 percent apiece and Ch\u00e1vez trailing at 23 percent. Grisham\u2019s polling memo<\/a> said that was an 11-point gain for her since February, while Griego gained eight points and Chavez lost 14.<\/p>\n

A news release from the Grisham campaign proclaimed this a two-way race between her and Griego.<\/p>\n

The other campaigns were quick to respond. Griego put out his own polling memo<\/a> that had him leading with 35 percent to Grisham\u2019s 30 percent and Chavez\u2019s 28 percent. The memo said Griego gained five points since late February, while Grisham gained six and Ch\u00e1vez lost nine.<\/p>\n

And though it didn\u2019t release a polling memo, the Ch\u00e1vez campaign said it had tracking numbers that had the race virtually tied \u2013 26 percent for Ch\u00e1vez, 25 percent for Grisham, 24 percent for Griego and 25 percent undecided.<\/p>\n

Unpacking the polls<\/h3>\n

What to make of all of this? Let\u2019s unpack things a little more.<\/p>\n

Grisham\u2019s poll surveyed 402 likely Democratic primary voters between Thursday and Sunday and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.9 percentage points. Only 7 percent of those surveyed were undecided.<\/p>\n

Griego\u2019s poll surveyed 400 likely Democratic primary voters on Tuesday and Wednesday and has the same margin of error as Lujan-Grisham\u2019s \u2013 and the same percentage of voters who were undecided.<\/p>\n

Ch\u00e1vez\u2019s tracking numbers didn\u2019t come with a margin of error, but his campaign said it was an automated survey of 1,929 Democrats conducted this weekend.<\/p>\n

As always, the difference may come down to methodology. There\u2019s actually not a lot of difference between the Grisham and Griego polls. Ch\u00e1vez might be using different methodology.<\/p>\n

On one hand, his tracking numbers might be suspect because they didn\u2019t come with a formal memo that listed a margin of error. On the other hand, I was surprised by the low number of undecideds in the other two polls.<\/p>\n

Grisham spokesman Gilbert Gallegos said it\u2019s not surprising: The Grisham and Griego polls have lower undecided numbers because they used live interviewers who push people to answer questions, while Ch\u00e1vez used an automated system that makes it easier to not make a choice.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere have been weeks of coverage, ads and mail. The election is in two weeks. It doesn\u2019t surprise me that there are few undecideds,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Difficult to predict<\/h3>\n

Gallegos may be right. So maybe the race is closer to what\u2019s indicated by the Grisham and Griego polls.<\/p>\n

But there\u2019s a more intuitive way to look at this race that I think is important in a situation in which three different polls paint three different pictures of where the race stands.<\/p>\n

Ch\u00e1vez is by far the most well-known of the three. He started out this race with much higher name ID. It makes sense that he would have led early in the polls.<\/p>\n

But the former Albuquerque mayor was also booted from office in 2009. The longer you\u2019re in office, the more people there are out there who don\u2019t like you. Ch\u00e1vez has a ceiling. I\u2019m not sure where it is, but it\u2019s there.<\/p>\n

In addition, Grisham and Griego have outraised Ch\u00e1vez. They\u2019ve been on TV with big ad buys, and he has not.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m assuming that\u2019s because he\u2019s been saving his limited money for one big ad buy at the end. So, while the others have spent the last few weeks gaining ground and maybe even pulling ahead of Ch\u00e1vez, he might spend the rest of the race experiencing a little surge of his own.<\/p>\n

Perhaps the other two have the funds to keep pace with Ch\u00e1vez on TV and stop him from gaining much ground. Perhaps not.<\/p>\n

And perhaps he\u2019s already reached his ceiling. At this point, I\u2019d rather be Grisham or Griego than Ch\u00e1vez.<\/p>\n

But Ch\u00e1vez\u2019s base is probably among the most reliable voters \u2013 those who are sure to turn out on Election Day. I wouldn\u2019t count him out.<\/p>\n

As far as I\u2019m concerned, this race could be roughly tied at a third apiece on June 5. It probably won\u2019t turn out that way, but that\u2019s how difficult I believe it is to predict.<\/p>\n

In other words, it\u2019s going to be a wild couple of weeks.<\/p>\n

Haussamen bio<\/a>\u00a0\u2502\u00a0Commentary page<\/a>\u00a0\u2502\u00a0Feed<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What to make of all the polls released today? As far as I\u2019m concerned, this race could be roughly tied at a third apiece on June 5.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1192,10],"tags":[228,156,240,116],"class_list":["post-40202","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commentary","category-haussamen-columns","tag-1st-congressional-district-race","tag-2012-election","tag-polling","tag-washington"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40202","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=40202"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40202\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40202"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40202"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}