NM-Sen: Udall in!

Exciting news (from last week) in the Senate race. So you know how I had New Mexico as a Tier III race? Well, that all changed when Sen. Pete Domenici (R) announced his retirement.

And while the Draft Gore movement didn't seem to work, the Draft Udall movement did, and Rep. Tom Udall (D) is going to run for Domenici's seat! Now, his cousin Mark Udall (D) is already running for Senate in Colorado to replace the retiring Wayne Allard (R), and conventional wisdom would indicate Mark has the edge in that race. So we may see the two cousins in the Senate come 2009!

The Udall family is one of the staunchest environmental families in America. Tom's father Stewart Udall was JFK's Interior Secretary, and he was basically responsible for all the groundbreaking environmental legislation we have today. He was like the Al Gore of the 1960s in protecting the environment.

(In an ironic twist, we're working to defeat another cousin of the Udalls, Sen. Gordon Smith (R-OR). Yep, Smith is their cousin currently serving in the Senate. He helped Dick Cheney violate the Endangered Species Act in 2001, which resulted in the largest fish-kill in Oregon history. Way to jeopardize the ecosystem there, Smith.)

Anyway, with all three New Mexico House members now running for this Senate seat, two polls done last week show Udall with a commanding lead over either Heather Wilson (R) or Steve Pearce (R).

Research 2000:

Udall (D): 55
Wilson (R): 38

Udall (D): 54
Pearce (R): 37

SurveyUSA:

Udall (D): 55
Pearce (R): 37

Udall (D): 56
Wilson (R): 38

So suddenly, the New Mexico Senate race has become a Tier I race.

BTW, former Senator Bob Kerrey (D) has said he will not run in Nebraska for his old seat, so that falls from Tier IA all the way back down to a Tier III race, though there's now a Draft Kleeb movement to get the ladies' favorite, Scott Kleeb (D), into the race.