We weren't just curious about the mayor's race when we polled ABQ this week. We also asked about other top-of-the-mind issues to get a flavor for how the city is thinking--or at least those who vote in city elections. They tend to be older and more conservative.

With that in mind, we present more findings from our exclusive, scientific survey conducted for us by longtime pollster Bruce Donisthorpe of BWD Global:

TOP VOTING ISSUE: Jobs came in as the top voting issue with 49%, followed by education (16%), crime (15%), the Albuquerque Police Department (10%) and Environment at 8%.

Republican voters cited jobs (65%) at a higher rate than Democrats (39%) and independents (36%)

In the Mayor’s race: Mayor Berry has a solid lead over Democrat Pete Dinelli among jobs voters (72-17), education (64-23) and crime (64-16) voters.

Dinelli has the lead over Berry among environment (51-26) and APD (46-30) voters. Heh, a former APD officer, scores highest among voters who rate APD as the most important issue. He gets 11% of them.

The Mayor leads in all sectors of the city. On the West Side, he beats Dinelli by a 65-24 margin. In the Valley, Berry is ahead 42-38. In the SE and Mid-NE Heights, Berry has a 51-32 lead over Dinelli. The Mayor has a commanding 72-17 lead in the NE Heights. The Democrat-leaning Valley has the highest percentage of undecided voters at 14%.

PERSONAL ECONOMIC SITUATION: We asked respondents if they were better off or worse off economically than they were four years ago. 38% said they were better off, while 37% said they were worse off. About 23% said they were about the same.

In the Mayor’s race: Berry has large lead over Dinelli among voters who are better off (78-15) and about the same (66-26). Voters who are worse off economically still favor the Mayor, but it’s by a much smaller margin at 42-37.

A BRIGHT FUTURE

VIEW OF ALBUQUERQUE’S FUTURE: We asked likely voters if they had a favorable or unfavorable view of Albuquerque’s future. About 69% responded favorable, while 20% said unfavorable. 11% were undecided. About 75% of GOP voters had a favorable view, compared to 67% of independent voters and 63% of Dem voters.

In the Mayor’s race, Berry’s lead among favorable voters was 71-20 over Dinelli. Those expressing an unfavorable view supported Dinelli by a 44-33 margin. Voters who were unsure supported the Mayor by a 51-30 rate.

As we reported this week, in our poll Berry led Dinelli 61 to 26 with Republican Paul Heh getting 5% and 8 percent undecided. The election is October 8, with early voting now underway.

We polled 452 likely voters via automatic phone calls. The margin of error is 4.6%.

Updated Crosstabs for our mayoral and issues poll are here. Crosstabs for City Council District 7 are here..

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(c)NM POLITICS WITH JOE MONAHAN 2013. Not for reproduction without permission of the author