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| Hull, Turner and Rodriguez |
So it goes in the muddled race for the '26 GOP gubernatorial nomination as former Rio Rancho Mayor Gregg Hull takes 30 percent of the vote in the ABQ Journal poll with Doug Turner at 21 percent and Duke Rodriguez at 9 percent.
An unusually large 40 percent of GOP voters remain undecided with less than a month to go before the June 2 primary and less than two weeks before widespread early in-person voting.
The survey was conducted April 24-May 1, a period when the fiery Rodriguez was taking on MLG and scoring headlines over a legal skirmish he is in over her universal childcare program.
But the cannabis tycoon has not caught fire. His candidacy got into quicksand fast with challenges over his legal residency, his large past donations to Democratic candidates and an aggressive but often abrasive personality that needed to be cooled with a large TV buy. Instead the campaign opted for billboards, full-page newspaper ads and digital.
Rodriguez has outraised his rivals via his personal donations and spent more than them. His failure to move the numbers is a serious blow and forces him to spend even more or decide that the race is out of reach and stop the money spigot.
Is the race winnable for him? Analyst Greg Payne:
That's at least a $1 million or more question. With these polling numbers that's what he would have to spend in the final weeks--and it is still high risk.
Payne and other observers say Rodriguez’s first TV ad on crime does not present him in the best possible fashion.
Only Turner had a major TV campaign as the poll began, a six figure buy featuring a soft bio spot of the ABQ businessman. That helped boost him into second, showing how Republican voters are highly persuadable.
Turner's twenty percent puts him in striking distance. His challenge remains fundraising and perhaps a harder edge to his message. More oil money should come and he is doing a fundraiser at Mar a Lago this week.
BATTLE OF UNKNOWNS
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Hull is the tortoise, plodding along and slowly gaining. His thirty percent is now only three percent away from a theoretical win in the three way race.
The poll's margin of error is plus or minus 4.3 percent. The newspaper is not expected to conduct any other primary polling.
Hull was the overwhelming pick of party regulars at the pre-primary convention where he won 57 percent of the delegates. He has been elected mayor of Rio Rancho three times. That gives him a political base his foes don't have. His widely-praised service there is the cornerstone of his candidacy.
Hull's fund-raising, however, has been anemic. Reversing that will now be critical if he is to stop Turner from stalling him in his tracks (or a rearmed Duke).
Hull's 38 percent margin in the ABQ metro--better than two to one over Turner and Rodriguez--is important. It will probably see the highest primary turnout of any of the state's regions.
The lack of energy in the Republican primary reflects the party's condition as it endures one of its most difficult stretches in history. With Democrats heavily favored to retain the governorship, the GOP nomination has been dismissed as not worth a bucket of spit. But someone has to win.
Will victory go to the inoffensive and tortoise-like Hull who has now led in the two public polls? Or the amiable Turner who has made a critical move or the assertive Rodriguez who looms in the shadows?
THE DEM "DEBATE"
Sponsored by the progressive group Dukes Up, the event featured questions for the candidates from advocacy groups rooted in the left wing of the Democratic party that heavily favors Haaland.
The event will be broadcast on PBS (KNME) Thursday night at 7 p.m.
The station did not produce the debate but said on one of their broadcasts that this blog has "misrepresented" the event. That is incorrect. We reported that the debate did not meet the generally accepted definition of a "real" political debate. That is factually correct. Such a debate features questions posed by journalists and is moderated by journalists. The Dukes Up event was not that.
Haaland has turned down "real" debates offered by KOB-TV, KOAT-TV and KRQE-TV. Her campaign has insisted that the Dukes Up event constitutes a debate that is equivalent to those offers. It is not. The one-sided questions asked at the Saturday occasion was proof of that.
If PBS and KNME want to have a positive impact on the campaign dialogue they should stop misrepresenting the Dukes Up event as a real debate. Instead they should join the other TV outlets in offering Bregman and Haaland a debating opportunity presided over by a complement of their station's able journalists. There's still time.
This is the Home of New Mexico Politics.