Primary Day for New Mexico is coming up (June 3) and the Democratic primary that will decided who the Democrats will run against Governor Susanna Martinez (R) will occur that day in a confused fashion! What is interesting is that the Governor's race for this state has not been polled frequently and neither has the Democratic Primary, so information pertaining to this race is very limited and predictions come from wild margins in polls.
The Democratic Governor Primary is what most political junkies in New Mexico are watching for this Tuesday. Therefore I will highlight the chances for these Governor hopefuls.
The candidates include Attorney General Gary King, State Senator's Linda Lopez and Howie Morales, administrator Lawrence Rael, and businessman Alan Webber. And so far, from recent polling it would seem to be a tossup.
Gary King is the current Attorney General of the State of New Mexico. Originally most people thought he was going to cruise in this primary and would become a headache for Gov. Martinez in the General Election. Even I was fooled, I thought he would have been a great candidate for the Democrats to run against Martinez. However, fundraising doesn't show that and poll numbers showing that Gary King's name recognition is about the only thing keeping him ahead of the other challengers at the moment.
Fundraising for last Quarter: $48,340 CoH for King.
Latest Poll: He lead with 22% voting for him, that is not a strong health lead in a 5-way race by any means.
Alan Webber is currently a Santa Fe businessman and one of the two candidates that I think now would be in the strongest position to challenge Gov. Martinez. Due to the amount of money that he is garnering in the race I think that Webber will be one of the two candidate to watch in the primary.
Fundraising for last Quarter: $455,900
Latest Poll: He tied with Lawrence Rael with 16% of the vote.
Lawrence Rael is a longtime Government Administrator with a lot of money and name recognition. He is the other candidate that I think could prove to be a difficult opponent for Gov. Martinez and would be the other candidate to likely defeat AG Gary King in the primary. He is matching Alan Webber in fundraising, I think this will be a very tight Governor's primary, something we have not seen in most states so far this year.
Fundraising for last Quarter: $455,900 (same as Webber)
Latest Poll: He tied with Alan Webber with 16% of the vote.
Sen. Howie Morales is a State Senator from Silver City. He would be the dark-horse candidate in this race. He has not had good fundraising numbers, and he has not had the best poll numbers. However, what he does have going for him is the fact that he had the most delegate support at the NM Democratic Convention and has the endorsement of a few key organizations. Watch out and don't be surprised if this State Senator wins this primary race.
Fundraising for last Quarter: $44,700
Latest Poll: He was in 3rd place with 12% of the vote.
Sen. Linda Lopez is another State Senator running in this race, she seems to be a great candidate. Unfortunately this is not the race for her, she has had bad fundraising numbers, has been unable to get any traction and bad poll numbers. Apparently she is just starting to go up with ads, a little too late IMO. She will likely get labeled as a spoiler for one of the candidates if another candidate beats them by less then 2% or so.
Fundraising for last Quarter: $13,950
Latest Poll: She was in 4th place with 5% of the vote.
The Latest Poll came from the Albuquerque Journal and it showed:
King 22%
Rael 16%
Webber 16%
Morales 12%
Lopez 5%
Undecided 29%
This race is wide open when the front-runner is running off of name recognition, is running a horrible campaign, has less that $50k to work with before election day, and has 2 opponents that could easily bring more undecided voters into their camp with ads that THEY CAN AFFORD. Democrats will probably be very happy if AG King is not their candidate for NM Governor this year, because he has run a horrible joke of a campaign. Keep your eyes on Rael, Morales, and Webber, they are all in a great position to overtake King this Tuesday. Nevertheless, I think that Webber and Rael would be the best of those three to put up against Martinez. Good luck to the Democratic candidate that wins the race!