Posted on 08/23/2012 1:02:04 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Mitt Romney’s appearance in Hobbs on Thursday (Aug. 23) has some Republicans thinking things will be much more competitive for the GOP presidential candidate than they were four years ago.
Back in 2008, Barack Obama swamped Republican nominee John McCain, winning the state in a blowout – by 15.1 points in a state that prior to that year had been way too close to call.
While a lot of political observers think Obama is the decided favorite to win in New Mexico, things appear to be tightening.
After racking up leads of as much as 15 points in some polls, Public Policy Polling – which is long affiliated with the Democratic Party — showed Obama’s lead on Romney shrinking to 5 points in a survey taken in July.
And that was before Romney selected Paul Ryan as his running mate.
So, is New Mexico back in play?
We asked a few political types in conservative Lea County after Romney appeared before a crowd, talking energy and making his case for the White House:
(VIDEO AT LINK)
Romney will have an uphill struggle in New Mexico since Democrats have a 48-32 lead on Republicans in registered voters.
National election outfits have almost uniformly placed New Mexico into the “leans Obama” category.
Not unless he can be sure the NM Secretary of State is clean.
If it's close, it's Dem.
NM ping to the question in comment 1.
Ping.
The Won did a morning radio interview on a second-tier radio station in ABQ a few days ago ... suggesting NM isn’t as solid as his campaign would like it to be.
Forget New Mexico. I’d rather spend the time in Colorado.
I have lived in both states. I think Romney/Ryan have a shot in both states. But Colorado has more electoral votes.
I think there are some identity voters (Mormon) who will help Romney there.
Also, NM went for Bush in 2004...so they may have just been hopenetized.
Somebody (several somebodies probably) are really concerned about New Mexico. We are getting two or three phone calls every night from pollsters.
More distressing is news from the US Senate race between Heather Wilson and Martin Heinrich. Heinrich is a left wing environmental radical who opposes oil and gas drilling in favor of windmills and solar panels. He probably will lose the oil patch but his railing against fossil fuel drilling and infrastructure (e.g. Keystone pipeline) likely will win the ABQ area and for sure the SF-Northern NM Dem region. Rasmussen also has Democrat Martin Heinrich up by 7 — 48-41.
What is distressing about Wilson is that she has thrown the Ryan budget plan overboard saying "Had I been in the Senate and on the budget committee and the Ryan budget came over, I would have worked on getting an alternative," and further elaborated that she has worries about what the Ryan plan would do to Medicare. I'll post a separate post with this info. She was going to get a donation from me this weekend but I think it will go to Steve Pearce and Bachmann instead.
NM list PING!
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Don’t forget Allen West.
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