Heather Wilson (R) beating Patricia Madrid (D) in New Mexico's 1st CD by 5 points (Survey USA)

Survey USA ^ | 21 September 2006 | Survey USA

[okstate]

Heather Wilson (R) 51%
Patricia Madrid (D) 46%
Undecided 3%

503 Likely Voters, +/- 4.5% MOE

[okstate]

This is really good news out of New Mexico. NM-01 was a top Democratic pickup, they thought... but with Wilson over 50 percent looks like she's in great shape.

[Jet Jaguar]

That is good news.

[okstate]

Ping, Heather Wilson looking good in New Mexico

[woofie]

Im not crazy about Heather but Madrid is a looser

[Perdogg]

Isn't Heather RINO lite, or an ACLU Republican?

[brytlea]

Glad to hear it! :)
susie

[woofie]

My Opinion: Heather is a lightweight occupying space, a bit of a Rino, she tries at times

[tobyhill]

I hope Heather wins but she better drop that RINO accent.

[Clintonfatigued]

a 5-point lead is not spectacular for a member of Congress. Hopefully, the lead will hold. Wilson needs to hang on not only for the sake of the House GOP majority, but because Pete Domenici will probably retire in 2008 and Wilson is the strongest GOP potential candidate.

[fieldmarshaldj]

Unfortunately, if Wilson runs for Senator in '08 against Rep. Tom Udall, the latter will probably win 55-45% (since he has already handily won 2 statewide races beforehand), and we might lose her seat, to boot. I think Pete should stay in until he's pushing up daisies.

[Clintonfatigued]

There are plenty of Republican officeholders who could hold Wilson's seat, most notably Bernalillo County Sheriff Darren White.

[Don'tMessWithTexas]

From what I have read, this district is swing district Dems and Pubbies and has always been hard for the GOP to hold. If Heather is leading, it is a very good sign for the GOP nationwide.

[fieldmarshaldj]

Perhaps, though if Patty Madrid loses a narrow contest, she'd obviously have a leg up on taking the seat in '08. I'd feel a bit more comfortable if we had a Hispanic Republican competing for the seat. Manny Luján, Jr. held the seat (with only an occasional close call) from its creation in 1968 until he retired to take the Sec'y of Interior job under Bush, Sr. in 1989 (and was both Hispanic and Native American), and was a native of the area. His successors, the late Steve Schiff, and Wilson, both were non-natives, the former being a Jewish Chicagoan, and the latter, a New Hampshire native.

One interesting name I thought of was John Sanchez, the giant-killer who took down the long-term NM Speaker of the House in 2000, but was (unfortunately) blitzed by Richardson 2 years later when he ran for Governor. I don't know what he's been doing lately, he seemed to drop off the radar screen completely.

[AuH2ORepublican]

"I think Pete should stay in until he's pushing up daisies."

---

I agree, we need to develop a better farm system in NM before I'd feel good about an open-seat Senate race in NM. Domenici will win comfortably if he runs again in 2008, and he's still healthy enough to do a good job.

I think John Sanchez would be an excellent choice for Wilson's House seat, especially as its Hispanic population increases.

BTW, if the SUSA poll is accurate, this is a very good result for Wilson. The district voted for Gore and Kerry and Madrid is her toughest challenger yet, and if the Democrats can't win this one I doubt they can net as many as 5 House seats nationwide.

[Non-Sequitur]

She's an 8 year incumbant. The two elections before this she beat her opponent by 9-10 points. Why is she so vulnerable now?

[AntiGuv]

This seems like as good a thread as any to post my latest House ratings, especially since it's inactive at the moment which might minimize the flaming. :)

In any case, a few quick notes are in order.

First, I've eliminated the Watch List. I generally figure that if an upset scenario hasn't materialized by Labor Day then it's probably not gonna make it, and were already three weeks past that even. There are two races, however, that I'm ambivalent about excluding, and that's CO-05 on the GOP side and LA-02 on the Dem side.

The former is an open seat with an very good Dem candidate on paper and a troubled local GOP, but it's also a deeply GOP district that has no business springing an upset. More well-known is Dollar Bill's problems in New Orleans, but we're talking about a district with 12% registered Republicans, and I figure either Jefferson won't even make the ballot or that it'll be him and fellow Democrat Karen Carter. If somehow the runoff ends up between Jefferson and Lavigne however I would rate the seat a Lean D.

But regardless, I would wager that any race which changes hands in November, barring dramatic revelations or change in candidates, will be on these lists below.

Second, I'm not a slave to polls, but if you don't like the fact that I have 8 GOP seats leaning to the Dems then you need to flame Survey USA, Research 2000, and Constituent Dynamics before you flame me. If you need me to post their email addresses then by all means let me know. If in fact I were a slave to polls there'd be even more seats listed as Lean Dem or Toss Up and even a few Likely Dem. That being said, polling is still the number one factor in my ratings and fundraising is #2. Oh, and I'm aware the national numbers have improved for the GOP; they're still worse than comparable numbers were for the Dems in 1994.

Third, I'm also not a stenographer for the pundits. If my goal was to just summarize the punditry then I'd provide links and leave it at that. However, I do sometimes move races closer to 'consensus views' even if I'm quite skeptical: Notable examples below are CT-05, KY-03, and GA-12. My impulse is to rate those lower than I have. At the same time I will rate contests that I think are competitive even if, to my knowledge, no one else does (e.g., OH-12 and NC-13). I'll also drop the ones that I don't see going anywhere despite their listing elsewhere (e.g., MN-02 and SD-AL).

One final note: I have added arrows to point to the Toss Up race that I think is most even. In other words, if I broke the Toss Ups into Slight advantages to one party or the other those below the line would be a Slight hold and those above would be a Slight flip. So, currently, the open Hyde seat is the closest to pure Toss Up in my estimation.

OK, that's enough rambling! I just mainly want to preempt some of the usual hostility that my ratings generate lately.

Lean Democratic

1 (TX-22) DeLay*
2 (AZ-08) Kolbe*
3 (IA-01) Nussle*
4 (IN-09) Sodrel
5 (PA-06) Gerlach
6 (CO-07) Beauprez*
7 (IN-02) Chocola
8 (CT-02) Simmons

Toss Up

9 (NY-24) Boehlert*
10 (PA-10) Sherwood
11 (IN-08) Hostettler
12 (NC-11) Taylor
13 (KY-04) Davis
14 (IL-06) Hyde* <<
15 (OH-15) Pryce
16 (CT-04) Shays
17 (NM-01) Wilson
18 (WI-08) Green*
19 (PA-07) Weldon
20 (WA-08) Reichert
21 (VA-02) Drake
22 (OH-01) Chabot

Lean Republican

23 (FL-22) Shaw
24 (MN-06) Kennedy*
25 (PA-08) Fitzpatrick
26 (CT-05) Johnson
27 (OH-18) Ney*
28 (CO-04) Musgrave
29 (AZ-05) Hayworth
30 (FL-13) Harris*
31 (NY-20) Sweeney
32 (OH-02) Schmidt
33 (WY-AL) Cubin
34 (FL-09) Bilirakis*
35 (NV-03) Porter
36 (NY-25) Walsh
37 (TX-23) Bonilla
38 (KY-03) Northup

Likely Republican

39 (NY-29) Kuhl
40 (NJ-07) Ferguson
41 (CA-11) Pombo
42 (NV-02) Gibbons*
43 (NY-26) Reynolds
44 (VA-10) Wolf
45 (MN-01) Gutknecht
46 (IL-10) Kirk
47 (OH-12) Tiberi
48 (NY-03) King
49 (ID-01) Otter*
50 (AZ-01) Renzi
51 (FL-08) Keller
52 (NE-01) Fortenberry
53 (NY-19) Kelly
54 (NH-02) Bass
55 (CA-04) Doolittle
56 (IL-11) Weller
57 (IA-02) Leach
58 (FL-16) Foley
59 (NC-08) Hayes
60 (KY-02) Lewis

And here's the much less exciting list for the Dem-held seats:

Lean Democratic

01 (IL-08) Bean
02 (GA-08) Marshall
03 (VT-AL) Sanders(I)*
04 (WV-01) Mollohan
05 (GA-12) Barrow
06 (IA-03) Boswell
07 (TX-17) Edwards
08 (OH-06) Strickland*
09 (LA-03) Melancon

Likely Democratic

10 (SC-05) Spratt
11 (IL-17) Evans*
12 (CO-03) Salazar
13 (HI-02) Case*
14 (NC-13) Miller
15 (WA-02) Larsen
16 (OH-13) Brown*
17 (KS-03) Moore
18 (PA-12) Murtha

As usual, comments are more than welcome! I am definitely open to moving seats around if there's a persuasive argument for it. (Neither 'it would make me happier' nor 'a little bird told me' are persuasive arguments in my book.)

[AntiGuv]

PS. I'd meant to move the Wilson seat down a bit more based in largest part on the latest SUSA poll but it slipped my mind. The NM-01 district should at #22 - the last seat in Toss Up. Besides the SUSA poll, there's also the fact that Madrid has trailed in all the polls, including internal polls and polling that has most all the GOP candidates above that polling worse. Then, there are the ethics allegations against Madrid and the fact that Wilson has of course routinely won in a tough district to hold.

[AntiGuv]

PPS. Both internal polls and Zogby internet polls are irrelevant to my rankings.

[AuH2ORepublican]

So there are 30 GOP-held seats in which you believe that the Democrats have a better chance of winning than the Republicans have of winning Melissa Bean's CD or Marshall's CD? The Democrats managed to win 4 GOP-held CDs in 1994, but the GOP won't win any Dem-held seats in 2006? Seems unlikely.

Let's compare your treatment of two scandal-plagued incumbents, Republican Don Sherwood and Democrat Alan Mollohan. Sherwood is facing an underfunded second-tier Democrat in a district that gave President Bush 60% in 2004, and his admission of marital infidelity does not appear to be enough to defeat him even if there is a large anti-GOP wave (had Pat Casey run against Sherwood, I could see him being potentially vulnerable, but as it is right now Sherwood will win comfortably despite himself). By comparison, Mollohan has been involved in several corruption scandals that forced him to resign from the House Ethics Committee, and is being challenged by a first-tier Republican candidate with a smaller financial disadvantage than that faced by Sherwood's opponent. Oh, and Mollohan's CD gave President Bush 58% of the vote, meaning that Sherwood enjoys an 18% advantage in his party's performance in the latest presidential race. But you rate Mollohan's CD as leaning Democrat and Sherwood's CD as a toss-up?

[AuH2ORepublican]

"PPS. Both internal polls and Zogby internet polls are irrelevant to my rankings."

---

I agree with that position. Zogby must have some really sordid pictures of the news editor of the Wall Street Journal, since I can think of no other explanation for why the WSJ published those Zogby Interactive surveys as if they were scientific polls.