New Mexico Democrats Maintain Strong Lead in Special Election for the 1st Congressional District

Thanks to the generous crowdfunding effort, our joint poll with RRH Elections was successfully funded and sent to the field. You can find a summary of the results below, or download the link directly below to see the full crosstabs and methodology:

Results

With Deb Haaland becoming Secretary of the Interior, a special election to fill her seat is slated for June 1st. Despite rumblings that the seat may be in play, Democrat Melanie Stansbury maintains a large lead in a new Elections Daily/RRH poll of the district. Stansbury leads Republican Mark Moores by a 49-33 margin, with 8% supporting either of the two third-party candidates and 9% remaining undecided.

While Republicans had higher hopes for the special election, this result would represent a 7% shift from the 2020 Presidential race in the district. It would also be roughly in line with Deb Haaland’s 2020 win. The survey gives President Biden a 58% approval rate in this district; he received 60.8% of the vote in November. The poll also shows that most voters have locked in their preferences, with 70% of respondents having already voted.

On the bright side for Moores, we do see some path for him to close the gap. Among voters who disapprove of Biden, he wins 75-5 with 14% going to third parties. But Stansbury wins Biden approvers 81-7 with only 4% going to third parties. However, we do not think there are enough votes left for him to come out an upset winner in this Albuquerque based district.

Methodology

The survey of 555 Likely Voters was conducted between May 18th and May 21st. It used both IVR phone calls to landlines provided by Wick Inc. and online panel responses from Prolific and SurveyMonkey. IVR calls in English and Spanish were placed to voters who had voted in two of the last four general elections, while all residents were eligible to see the online surveys. Respondents who indicated a disinclination to vote were not included in the survey. Survey responses were weighted to age, gender, race, and education level only. Random deletion was not used as a method of weighting. All survey design and data analysis, including weighting, was performed solely by RRH Elections.