With regard to Wilson, she won in 2004 with 54.4% against a second-tier opponent. She now has a top-tier opponent who at the least should've held Wilson to 51% or 52% if this were the 2004 landscape, and might've even won. In a year that looks likely to favor Democrats, I think Madrid will beat Wilson in a Dem-leaning district.
4% pro Kerry is rather marginal to call the Pubbie GOP incumbent history, who won by 8%. Plus Wilson is not a deer in the headlights type. Meanwhile, Simmons won by the same margin in a pro Kerry 8% district, closer to the center of the anti GOP swing area. What am I missing?
Wilson needs to aggressively target Madrid for having her head buried up her a$$ with all these New Mexico Democrat scandals. She seems more interested in running for federal office than doing her job as state Attorney-General.
The New Mexico political watcher I talk with, who's a classic Independent swing voter from Albuquerque (on another board), says that Madrid is too far to the left to win in this CD. It will obviously be fairly close, however, and in a strong Dem year, would have a good shot of flipping.
Wilson will continue to track to the middle, as she has done with the "wire-tapping" story and other votes. How Madrid plays this will be interesting. He also says that if the nominee were someone like , mayor of Albuquerque, Martin Chavez, a more centrist candidate, the chances of a Dem win would be much stronger.
Just as a tidbit, I'll give a couple of things to watch for in this race:
This is the best blog I know of to follow NM politics and this race from a non-partisan view:
http://www.joemonahan.com/
As we all know, non-partisan House polls are nearly impossible to come by. So, you have to look at partisan ones and try and make guesses.
Madrid did release an internal poll, done by Celinda Lake's DC firm that showed Wilson up 44%-43% over Madrid.
http://www.madridforcongress.com/node/513
The poll also gave Wilson a 52% approval rating. Wilson's done some internal polling too, according to sources, but none of it has been released.
The Albequerque Journal normally does polling of NM-1 somewhere along the line, I'd be on the lookout for it.