{"id":7608,"date":"2009-10-09T08:56:01","date_gmt":"2009-10-09T14:56:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=7608"},"modified":"2009-10-09T13:19:26","modified_gmt":"2009-10-09T19:19:26","slug":"next-weeks%e2%80%99-finance-reports-will-shed-light-on-2010","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2009\/10\/next-weeks%e2%80%99-finance-reports-will-shed-light-on-2010\/","title":{"rendered":"Finance reports will shed light on 2010 election"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Former

Former state GOP Chairman Allen Weh, left, and former state Democratic Party Chairman Brian Col\u00f3n, right, may lead the way in fundraising in their respective races. (Courtesy photos)<\/p><\/div>\n

Former state party chairs may lead the way in fundraising in their respective races<\/h4>\n

The first finance reports for candidates running for state offices are due Tuesday, and they promise to shed a lot of light on how the 2010 election is shaping up.<\/p>\n

The most hotly contested primaries thus far have been the Republican gubernatorial contest and the fight for the Democratic nomination for lieutenant governor. In addition, there are already at least three other primary races with more than one declared candidate: The GOP lieutenant governor race and the primaries on both sides of the aisle for state land commissioner.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s in the Republican gubernatorial and Democratic lieutenant gubernatorial primaries that we should expect to get a clearer picture of the lay of the land with next week\u2019s finance reports. In both races, there\u2019s a high expectation that the former chairs of their respective state parties will do well.<\/p>\n

GOP gubernatorial primary<\/h3>\n

In the GOP gubernatorial primary are four candidates: state Rep. Janice Arnold-Jones<\/a>, Do\u00f1a Ana County District Attorney Susana Martinez<\/a>, public relations professional Doug Turner<\/a> and former state GOP Chairman Allen Weh<\/a>. Nobody has released fundraising totals yet.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s fair to assume that, with former U.S. Rep. Heather Wilson<\/a> still on the fence about whether she\u2019s going to run, all the candidates may be having a hard time raising money, but at least Turner has said that he isn\u2019t relying on longtime Wilson supporters to fund his campaign.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a good chance Weh will lead the pack in fundraising. We don\u2019t know if has self-financed his campaign, but he\u2019s touted the success of his \u201cmulti-million dollar\u201d business on the campaign trail, and it\u2019s likely that he will put some of his money into his campaign at some point if he hasn\u2019t done it already.<\/p>\n

In addition, when he was state party chair Weh was known for his ability to raise impressive sums of money, and it\u2019s reasonable to expect he\u2019ll be able to duplicate at least some of that as a candidate.<\/p>\n

Weh told supporters Thursday in an e-mail that he exceeded the $7,000 he needed to raise in the final days of the fundraising period to reach his overall goal, but he didn\u2019t say what the goal was.<\/p>\n

Turner should also have a decent fundraising report. He owns a business and has some ability to self-finance. In addition, he was state director and manager for former Gov. Gary Johnson\u2019s<\/a> campaigns and deputy political director for Steve Forbes\u2019<\/a> unsuccessful 2000 presidential campaign.<\/p>\n

Turner may have the ability to tap into fundraising from the libertarian wing of his party that the other candidates won\u2019t be able to access. Having worked on Forbes\u2019 campaign, he may also have the ability to draw significant out-of-state money.<\/p>\n

The big question, I think, is whether Martinez and Arnold-Jones can raise enough money to compete. Arnold-Jones has a loyal following after forcing webcasting<\/a> on her colleagues last year, and Martinez may have moved beyond being a regional candidate by developing support in the Farmington area<\/a>, but can either come up with the cash to stay competitive?<\/p>\n

Time will tell.<\/p>\n

Democratic lieutenant gubernatorial primary<\/h3>\n

We know of at least one candidate for statewide office who\u2019s having a fairly easy time raising money \u2013 former state Democratic Party Chairman Brian Col\u00f3n<\/a>, who\u2019s running for lieutenant governor. He said in late September that he had already raised more than $100,000<\/a>, and he had four additional fundraisers planned after that.<\/p>\n

In addition, he has raised more than $40,000 on the liberal fundraising site ActBlue<\/a> \u2013 with more than half of that coming after he announced he had surpassed $100,000 in total fundraising.<\/p>\n

Col\u00f3n\u2019s fundraising could top that of some of the GOP gubernatorial candidates. The question is whether anyone else in the Democratic primary for lieutenant governor is keeping up with him.<\/p>\n

No one else has released any information about fundraising, so we don\u2019t know the answer.<\/p>\n

Many Democrats have said they expect Col\u00f3n and Lawrence Rael<\/a>, executive director of the Mid-Region Council of Governments, to be the top candidates in the race, and Rael has also had some success at raising money, sources say. But how much success isn\u2019t clear.<\/p>\n

The other candidates are Santa Fe County Sheriff Greg Solano<\/a>, state Sens. Linda Lopez<\/a> and Gerald Ortiz y Pino<\/a> of Albuquerque and State Rep. Jose Campos<\/a> of Santa Rosa. Sen. Tim Eichenberg<\/a>, D-Albuquerque, has also been making rumblings about running or considering running, but he has not formally declared his candidacy.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ll know more next week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The first finance reports for candidates running for state offices are due Tuesday, and they promise to shed a lot of light on how the 2010 election is shaping up. Two former state party chairs may lead the way in fundraising in their respective contests.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,1],"tags":[108,107],"class_list":["post-7608","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","category-uncategorized","tag-2010-election","tag-roundhouse"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7608","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=7608"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7608\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}