{"id":4198,"date":"2009-02-02T02:06:00","date_gmt":"2009-02-02T08:06:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2009\/02\/pearce-says-hell-be-on-the-ballot-in-2010\/"},"modified":"2009-02-02T02:06:00","modified_gmt":"2009-02-02T08:06:00","slug":"pearce-says-hell-be-on-the-ballot-in-2010","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2009\/02\/pearce-says-hell-be-on-the-ballot-in-2010\/","title":{"rendered":"Pearce says he’ll be on the ballot in 2010"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Steve Pearce<\/a> says he\u2019s either going to run in 2010 for governor or attempt to reclaim the 2nd Congressional District seat he used to hold.<\/p>\n

The Hobbs oilman and Republican, who left office last month after opting against running for re-election to his House seat and losing the U.S. Senate race to Democrat Tom Udall<\/a>, told the Las Cruces Sun-News<\/a> for an article published Saturday that he\u2019s been traveling the state and talking to county-level GOP officials about his political future. He\u2019s keeping his former congressional office in Hobbs open for personal use and keeping his Washington, D.C. and Hobbs homes.<\/p>\n

And he\u2019s focusing on building a network and doing polling in the 1st and 3rd Congressional Districts with his eyes on the governor\u2019s race. But that doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s the seat he\u2019s gunning for.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe fully intend to run for something,\u201d the newspaper quoted Pearce as saying. \u201cTo say I want one over the other — it\u2019s still a bit early to lean one direction over the other.\u201d<\/p>\n

A run at his congressional seat would pit Pearce against Democratic Rep. Harry Teague<\/a>, who like Pearce is a Hobbs oilman. If he gets into the gubernatorial race, Pearce could face former U.S. Rep. Heather Wilson<\/a> in the primary. He narrowly defeated Wilson last year in a divisive U.S. Senate primary.<\/p>\n

Lt. Gov. Diane Denish<\/a> is the only Democrat who has already entered the 2010 gubernatorial race, but actor Val Kilmer<\/a>, who lives on a ranch outside Pecos, is among others who are seriously considering getting into the race.<\/p>\n

The Sun-News checked in with a few others who left office at the end of 2008. According to the article, former state Sen. Leonard Lee Rawson, R-Las Cruces, refers to last year\u2019s narrow defeat at the hands of Democrat Steve Fischmann<\/a> as a chance for a \u201cbreak\u201d from politics.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe expect to be active in the political affairs of our community, state and country, so we\u2019re not out of the picture, if that\u2019s what you’re asking,\u201d the newspaper quoted Rawson as saying. \u201cIf you\u2019re asking what that picture looks like, I\u2019m going to hold on to that one.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, former Do\u00f1a Ana County Commissioner Kent Evans told the Sun-News that he may run for office again. And former County Commissioner and congressional candidate Bill McCamley, when asked if he plans to run for office again, said, \u201cNot at the moment. After running for Congress, it takes a little while to recharge your batteries.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Steve Pearce says he\u2019s either going to run in 2010 for governor or attempt to reclaim the 2nd Congressional District seat he used to hold. The Hobbs oilman and Republican, who left office last month after opting against running for re-election to his House seat and losing the U.S. Senate race to Democrat Tom Udall, […]<\/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-4198","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4198","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=4198"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4198\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}