Tuesday, July 16, 2019Tight Three Way Money Race For Northern Congress Seat; Plame Tops The List; Rep. Torres Small Banks $1 million In Early Going In Southern Contest
THE ANALYSIS --Plame did what she had to do and showed she is not a famous flash in the pan. She points out she only began raising money "roughly halfway through the quarter." Her national ties showed as she reported nearly 3,900 individual donors. --Serna is off to a solid start but will have to keep up the pace in the current quarter and show that he can stay with Plame. --Leger Fernandez came in third but she has an ace in the hole--her Emily's List endorsement. The national women's group has the potential to come with hundreds of thousands in TV ads for her. So while she was third, she stayed close and it was close enough. None of the three candidates in the top tier in this race was knocked out. In fact, we've got an exciting horse race here. Plame seemed to recognize it when in a news release she jabbed at Serna for taking a campaign contribution from the PAC for electric utility PNM while saying she rejected corporate PAC money. And she needled Leger Fernandez for being a "lobbyist/lawyer." Return fire came from the Serna campaign: It's amazing that this self-professed newcomer to politics is the first candidate to start a negative campaign by attacking Marco and Teresa. . . and embarrassing for her as she hid where 90% of her campaign contributions came from. . .Marco filed every contribution. . .so will Valerie follow suit and tell New Mexicans where tens of thousands of dollars of her campaign contributions came from? The other name candidate in the race trying to break into the top tier--northern State Rep. Joseph Sanchez--reported raising $42,520 in the quarter and had $40,000 cash on hand. Veteran government official Rob Apodaca reported $36,000 in contributions. He also loaned his campaign $65,000. The northern seat is being vacated by Dem US Rep. Ben Ray Lujan who is running for the 2020 Dem US senate nomination. The district is all D all the time. The winner of the Dem nomination will almost certainly be seated in the US Congress in 2021. Republican Brett Kokinadis, who was running for the northern seat, dropped out Tuesday and now says he will run for the ABQ seat held by Rep. Deb Haaland.
The FEC currently lists a total of 9 Dem candidates For the northern seat. More on the individual donations to the candidates here. SOUTHERN CD ACTION  Democrats demonstrated they are serious indeed about retaining the southern congressional seat they won in an upset in 2018. Dem US Rep. Xochitl Torres Small reported raising $570,000 in the April quarter and her FEC report says her cash in the bank is now a hefty $1 million.Republican Yvette Herrell is again seeking the GOP nomination for a second chance to take on Torres Small who narrowly beat her in '18. She reported raising $101,000 in the quarter and having $307,000 in cash. But look at this. Yvette has Las Cruces businessman Chris Mathys breathing down her neck. The GOP newcomer has loaned himself $176,000 with $100,000 of that coming in the April quarter. He sports $159,000 in cash. Herrell is the favorite but if Mathys is serious about spending that loot, we'll have a bit of a chase for the nomination, And speaking of a chase, what about Claire Chase of the Chase oil family in SE NM? Rumors continue to swirl about her possibly running for the GOP nod for the southern seat. It's a long shot but one worth watching. What say you, Claire? PINTO WATCH The Alligators said to watch out for the granddaughter but we thought they may have missed the call. Now there is this: The San Juan County Commission has nominated Shannon Pinto to take her grandfather's seat on the state Senate representing District 3. The County Commission had originally nominated former County Commissioner Wallace Charley, but Charley withdrew his name from consideration. That led to the County Commission having a special meeting on July 15 to choose a new nominee. Governor Lujan Grisham will ultimately choose who to appoint to fill the vacant position. District 3 includes portions of San Juan and McKinley counties. Both counties have chosen nominees to serve the remainder of Sen. John Pinto's term. Nice job, Gators. Now can you tell us who MLG will choose? This is the home of New Mexico politics. Interested in reaching New Mexico's most informed audience? Advertise here.   (c)NM POLITICS WITH JOE MONAHAN 2019 |
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