NM-Gov: Martinez Leads GOP Primary by 10 (and Denish by 6)

SurveyUSA (5/23-25, likely voters, no trend lines):

Susana Martinez (R): 43

Allen Weh (R): 33

Doug Turner (R): 8

Pete Domenici, Jr. (R): 8

Janice Arnold-Jones (R): 3

Undecided: 5

(MoE: ±4.6%)

SurveyUSA has a number of early voters in this sample (19%), and they’ve broken for Sarah Palin-endorsed Dona Ana District Attorney Susana Martinez over businessman Allen Weh by a 50-33 margin. (Another poll floating around the tubes, this one paid for by New Mexico political gossip blogger Joe Monahan, has Martinez up by 41-30 over Weh.)

But the most interesting part of this poll is its general election match-ups, which may shake up assumptions that Democratic Lt. Gov. Diane Denish is favored in November:

Diane Denish (D): 43

Susana Martinez (R): 49

Undecided: 8

Diane Denish (D): 49

Janice Arnold-Jones (R): 35

Undecided: 16

Diane Denish (D): 46

Pete Domenici, Jr. (R): 40

Undecided: 14

Diane Denish (D): 50

Doug Turner (R): 36

Undecided: 14

Diane Denish (D): 47

Allen Weh (R): 42

Undecided: 10

(MoE: ±2.7%)

I have feared for some time now that SSP’s current rating of this race, Likely Democratic, may have been too optimistic given the nature of this cycle, but the absence of any poll numbers to confirm that suspicion has made any move difficult to justify. Indeed, even Rasmussen found Denish crushing Martinez by nearly 20 points back in March, and a PPP poll from February found Denish leading her opponents by spreads varying from five points (against Domenici the younger) and 18 points (against Weh). The one parallel between PPP’s poll and this one is that Denish was in the mid-40s in all of her match-ups back in February — it’s really only Martinez’s strength that has changed the ballgame this time around. It seems possible that Martinez’s primary ad blitz is carrying over into some general election appeal.