New Mexico Political Report<\/a>,\u00a0a nonprofit news organization\u00a0focused on promoting a greater public understanding of politics and policy in New Mexico.<\/p>\n<\/aside>\nPearce spokesman Kevin Sheridan said \u201cAugust has been a great month\u201d for the campaign.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are getting tremendous feedback from Steve\u2019s message that he is the leader for New Mexico who will create jobs,\u201d he said of the poll\u2019s results.<\/p>\n
James Hallinan, a spokesman for Lujan Grisham, was skeptical of the poll\u2019s results and said, \u201cThe stakes couldn\u2019t be higher for our state after eight years of failed Republican leadership from Susana Martinez.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe veracity of this poll is questionable for many reasons — including that its registered voters, not likely voters, no live calls were made, and the sample is not representative of the New Mexico electorate,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The poll found each candidate leading among their own constituents, though the poll shows Pearce leading in the 3rd Congressional District, a Democratic stronghold where a Republican has only held office once, two decades ago. The only Republican to win the district since 2014 was Gov. Susana Martinez in her blowout victory against Democratic nominee Gary King.<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n
U.S. Senate race<\/h3>\n
The polling memo calls former Gov. Gary Johnson, a Libertarian, \u201cthe top competition\u201d against U.S. Senator Martin Heinrich, a Democrat. Johnson officially entered the race last week.<\/p>\n
Heinrich has the support of 39 percent of those polled. Gary Johnson has 21 percent and Mick Rich, the Republican, has just 11 percent. The poll shows 30 percent undecided.<\/p>\n
\u201cMartin Heinrich remains committed to running on his record and vision for New Mexico, and that will be his focus whether a poll shows him winning by 18 points or not,\u201d Heinrich campaign spokeswoman Vanessa Valdivia said.<\/p>\n
The poll showed that Johnson, who served two terms as governor of New Mexico as a Republican before becoming the Libertarian nominee for president in 2012 and 2016, captured more Republicans than the Republican nominee.<\/p>\n
A spokesman for Johnson said the poll results were not a surprise.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe data we have looked at certainly has shown that there\u2019s a race,\u201d Joe Hunter said. \u201cOtherwise we wouldn\u2019t be in it. The Emerson Poll is consistent with what we believe is the state of play.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rich\u2019s campaign, meanwhile, said the results are in question because of the methodology.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe methodology is flawed,\u201d pollster Brian Tringali of The Tarrance Group, which conducts polling for Rich, said. \u201cIt includes very few seniors, and it does not match every other recent poll.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Tarrance Group is a Republican firm that also conducts polls for the Pearce campaign.<\/p>\n
Approval ratings<\/h3>\n
Meanwhile, outgoing Gov. Susana Martinez, a Republican, remains unpopular as she finishes her time in office. Just 30 percent of voters polled say they approve of her job performance, while 47 percent disapprove. Martinez is term-limited and was barred from running for a third-consecutive term.<\/p>\n
She is even more unpopular than President Donald Trump, who New Mexico voters give a 35 percent approval rating to 54 percent disapproval, below national polling averages.<\/p>\n
The poll also found registered voters did not back expanding a border wall between the United States and Mexico. Just 38 percent said they favored it, while 54 percent opposed it.<\/p>\n
The poll of 500 registered voters was conducted Aug. 17 and 18 by calling landlines and through Survey Monkey online. The poll has a margin of error of +\/- 4.6 percent.<\/p>\n
Interactive Voice Response, or IVR, polling is conducted only with landlines, which some consider less reliable than polling conducted via live-interviews over the phone. One reason is that IVR polls cannot legally call cell phones. To make up for this, some pollsters have begun using online panels.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Still, tthe incumbent Democratic U.S. senator holds a sizeable lead over his two challengers, according to a\u00a0new poll from Emerson College.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":616722,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[2238,297,3332,3318,3651,107,3306,116],"class_list":["post-616716","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-2018-election","tag-gary-johnson","tag-martin-heinrich","tag-michelle-lujan-grisham","tag-mick-rich","tag-roundhouse","tag-steve-pearce","tag-washington"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/616716","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=616716"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/616716\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/616722"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=616716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=616716"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=616716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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<\/p>\n