The Martinez campaign pushed back Wednesday against talk heard this week on "New Mexico Politics with Joe Monahan" about insider campaign polling showing Martinez stalled out in the mid 40's and Denish in the low 40's (Not that we like to cause any trouble :). The campaign came with their own survey showing Susana beating Di by ten big ones--50% to 40%. Shortly after, Denish came with her own poll that has Martinez leading by only five percent-- 49% to 44%.

The Martinez poll was taken Sept. 11 thru 13. The two mid-September insider campaign polls we've been told about--one for an R and another taken for a Dem--have Martinez below the critical 50% mark. One had her at 48% and the other at 47%. We've been calling those numbers "the mid-40's" but you could quibble and say they are in the high 40's. Still, our original contention stands that Martinez has not yet closed this deal and there are signs that Tortoise Diane is doing some nipping at the tail of Hare Martinez. It was that contention that seemed to prompt the Martinez campaign to release their internal data Wednesday morning (even if somewhat dated) which then prompted Denish's camp to come with data of their own (also somewhat dated).

Di's poll shows her trailing Susana by five points--49% to 44%. They say their Greenberg Quinlan Rosner poll was taken Sept. 12-14, basically the same timeline as Martinez's. It should again be noted that all the polls being quoted are getting long in the tooth for this fast moving race and may not reflect current political reality.

That Camp Denish is putting out their own poll showing her five back and calling the race a "toss-up" demonstrates the good fortune Republican Martinez is having in this majority Dem state. And it's interesting to see Susana just one point below the magic 50% in a Democartic poll.

The Denish and Martinez polls disagree on the vital Hispanic vote. From Di:

Denish has begun to make up significant ground with Hispanics and now leads Martinez by 17 percentage points with Hispanics, up from a 9 percentage point lead in August.

ANALYSIS OF ALL THIS


The Martinez campaign polling is supervised by Nicole McCleskey of the GOP polling firm Public Opinion Strategies. Her husband is Jay McCleskey, Martinez's chief media strategist and a longtime NM GOP consultant now with Lincoln Strategies. With Martinez spending millions, there's no recession in that household.

The poll was released through Las Cruces political reporter Heath Haussamen whose own financial prospects could improve if Susana wins. He's getting prominent mentions in political circles as a possible communications director for a "Governor Martinez."

The next ABQ Journal poll is expected to be released October 3, but that has not been confirmed by the newspaper. The Journal had the race 45% to 39% in favor of Susana in their late August survey.

Wherever the race is at, maximum pressure is now on the Democrats and Denish to hold Martinez in the next poll to that six point Journal lead or better yet--narrow it. If the gap grows there could be some D's tempted to start throwing in the towel. But if the next Journal poll shows Martinez not holding a lead in the vicinity of 10 percent--a margin now trumpeted statewide by the GOP--it could hurt Martinez's momentum. But the Martinez camp apparently felt the inside chatter on this blog posed a threat and decided to go with their numbers from 10 days ago to quell any concerns.

As for Susana, she says in her polling memo that there will be "tier one" messaging in October. We hope that means something about the economy, jobs and the budget. You know, the stuff a governor is supposed to be concerned with.

It probably will. Martinez's plan appears to be to pound Di into the ground so she can't move much and then come in October with a message addressing the economic issues as well as dropping in some personal highlights. At least, that seems the logical way. But the fact that factcheck.org is saying Susana's September corruption theme is half-baked doesn't help.

From the current polling you can assume that if there is going to be a blow-out in the 2010 Guv race--a victory of more than say seven points, it will done by Susana, not Di. Remember those blow-out wins of hers at the GOP pre-primary and again at the June 1 primary?

POLLING WITH PAVLIDES

Democratic analyst and longtime pollster Harry Pavlides checked in to say he'd like to stick out his neck and make a prediction on what that second ABQ Journal poll will show when the fish wrapper is put on the new stands.

Denish will be three points behind. The Democrats are only now starting to pay close attention to the race. As they do, she will close the gap and then the race will be about who gets their vote out.

Pavlides says he sees Martinez in the region of 47% in the next Journal survey and Denish about 44%.Will he have to east some shattered crystal ball glass with his scrambled eggs the morning of the poll? We'll just have to wait and see.

MORE POLL ACTION

We met up with KOB-TV's Stuart Dyson to talk about the latest Guv polling action. Here's that report.

IS SUSANA A PETE?

Kicking around the political pigskin with veteran Dyson and it lands on the subject of first names.

"It's interesting how you hear folks already referring to Martinez by her first name. It reminds me of when we used to call Domenici "Pete" and Mayor Chavez "Marty." There's a likability there and I think that's helping her," Dyson said.

Of course, we rib the gals and guys in the press that they should disclose their obvious conflict of interest. A Martinez in Santa Fe would be potentially explosive while a Di regime would be more sedate. Who would they rather cover?

FOLEY WATCH

There's a little cottage industry that watches former Roswell GOP State Rep. Dan Foley and dutifully reports their finding here. The latest news is that Dan is now working for the Daniels Insurance Agency in ABQ where Democratic heavyweight Jamie Koch heads up the shop, That's an interesting business marriage.

And Dan, defeated for his Roswell area state House seat in 2008, and now a resident of Rio Rancho, is also on the screening committee for the Association of Commerce and Industry to decide which legislative candidates the business group will endorse. But Foley is not in line to become ACI director, says current ACI honcho Beverly McClure. She's doing just fine, thank you.

And then there's talk of Foley running for the chairmanship of the state GOP next year. Really? After he voted that time to make Democrat Ben Lujan Speaker.

THE BOTTOM LINES

Get rid of the ABQ economic development department because it duplicates other efforts? So wrote reader Fred Gurule here recently which means we're going to hear from the other side and this reader who wanted anonymity:

 Mr. Gurule's comments about the economic development staff at the city of Albuquerque are misplaced. I agree strongly that we are overpaying for duplicative economic development efforts, and that it is an area of low hanging fruit in any budget trimming, but the ED staff at the City are among those who actually have a real job to do and who have measurable accomplishments. Unlike the chasers and salesmen who live for the announcement, this staff actually has to do substantive legislative and administrative follow-through on real transactions. This includes seeing matters through the local legislative process, and following up on the enforcement of agreements when deals go south. It is this group that successfully negotiated and enforced the $13 million clawback from Phillips when they left town, and actually works day to day with the film industry when projects are here.

To my knowledge, none of the recent unfulfilled promises (Green2V, Signet Solar, etc,) have the fingerprints of this hardworking group.

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