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.
Marty Chavez is a strange man. I find it hard to see him as a "centrist" when he sounded like a left-wing kook when he ran for Governor against Gary Johnson in '98. My liberal relatives who live in Albuquerque described Chavez as almost right-wing, which gave me a chuckle.
How are you seeing the NM GOP's ability to win any of the other downballot statewide offices ? I think it's appalling that they've failed to make a strong bid for these offices. You'd think the Michael Montoya-Robert Vigil scandals would serve as a wake-up call.