NM-Senate: GOP All But Concedes Race to Tom Udall

Last week I wrote about the US Senate race in Colorado featuring Democratic congressman Mark Udall - now is the time to feature his cousin, fellow congressman and fellow senatorial candidate, Tom Udall of New Mexico. Udall received some great news in the past week when the National Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee canceled all their ad buys in New Mexico. Given their prior commitment to refuse spending money in races they couldn’t win, they seem to have taken all steps in conceding the race, short of actually pulling their candidate. In this now-uncontested race, Udall faces current GOP Congressman from New Mexico’s 2nd Congressional district, Steve Pearce. As with all of the senatorial and congressional races that I’ll be highlighting this fall, the Senate race in New Mexico has significant implications for environmental policy. Now that the GOP has all but bailed on Pearce, we can even be a bit more certain about what those implications will be.

Udall and Pearce are competing for the Senate seat being vacated by the retiring Pete Domenici, who has been wildly popular in New Mexico’s political scene. The Republican Senator has served thirty-five years in the Senate and won resounding reelection victories, time after time. More importantly for our purposes, however, Domenici has become one of environmental advocates’ worst enemies in the Senate. Both the League of Conservation Voters and Republicans for Environmental Protection have singled out Domenici for his fairly egregious efforts to impede a sound energy and environmental policy - especially in regards to oil drilling in ANWR and the Gulf of Mexico. Domenici’s retirement leaves the possibility for an environmental champion like Udall to replace one of the environment’s greatest enemies in the US Senate.

Udall has already been endorsed by the League of Conservation Voters, and has consistently scored over 90% on the LCV’s annual scorecard. He is also the founder of the Congressional Peak Oil Caucus - so transitioning from a big oil Senator like Domenici to Udall would be a grand victory, not just for Democrats seeking the magic 60 seats, but for anyone invested in protecting our nation’s natural environment and achieving energy independence without increasing our production and consumption of fossil fuels. Despite the NRSCC’s deferral on spending money in New Mexico, it is equally important to note that Pearce has his own history of standing against increased environmental protection. To further support the fairly uncontested nature of this race, the average margin has never dipped below 10 points in Udall’s favor. Udall has even topped the 60% mark in three polls, so he appears to be sitting in the proverbial driver’s seat. As far as Democrats looking to pick up seats this November, Udall may be one of the safest bets the party has in these battleground races.

Related Posts:

• CO-Senate: Udall Damages Pro-Environmental Credentials
• League of Conservation Voters Names Two More Candidates to “Dirty Dozen” List of Eco-Haters
• Can the Democrats Win in the West

Photo Credit: barbwire55 via flickr under a Creative Commons License

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