The race in New Mexico’s second congressional district, one of 2020’s most closely watched House toss-ups, is in a dead heat.
Democratic Rep. Xochitl Torres Small and Republican businesswoman and former state Rep. Yvette Herrell each received 46% support in a poll conducted by the Tarrance Group for the National Republican Congressional Committee, a summary of which was provided exclusively to the Washington Examiner. Another 8% of voters were undecided.
The poll surveyed 400 voters from July 7-9 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.9%.
There are few polls of the House race. A December internal poll from the Congressional Leadership Fund, a Republican PAC, found Herrell ahead of Torres Small by 2 points.
This is the second straight cycle that Torres Small and Herrell will face each other in a general election. The Democratic incumbent narrowly won the rural southern New Mexico district, which encompasses Las Cruces, Roswell, and areas with booming oil and natural gas production industries, in 2018 as part of the Democratic “blue wave.” Former Republican Rep. Steve Pearce, who held the seat for 14 of the previous 16 years, left the seat to run for governor that year.
Early results that year gave Herrell an edge, but the inclusion of absentee ballots led Torres Small to a 3,500-vote victory. Donald Trump won the district in 2016 by 10.2%, making it a prime target for Republicans to flip back to the GOP.
“While the candidates have similar favorable ratings as the campaigns head into the last four months of the race, Torres-Small comes with considerably more baggage,” said the pollster’s executive summary memo, referencing Herrell having a better net favorability rating than Torres Small.
While 44% of voters had a favorable view of Torres Small, 39% said they had an unfavorable view. Herrell, meanwhile, had 43% favorability among voters in the poll, and 28% said their view was unfavorable.
“An incumbent under 50%, tied with the challenger, and nearly at a 1:1 favorable to unfavorable image is vulnerable,” the memo said.
Herrell won the chance to face Torres Small again after a nasty primary campaign in which Herrell’s primary opponent, Claire Chase, accused her of spreading false rumors about Chase’s first marriage, which Herrell denied. And in an unusual move, Democratic groups ran attack ads against both the women in the district ahead of the primary. The ads “attacked” Herrell for being loyal to Trump, creating a thinly veiled subversive campaign to boost Herrell’s appeal among primary voters, apparently believing that Herrell may be easier to beat than Chase would have been.
But despite the nasty primary, the polling memo found that “Herrell emerged from the Republican primary with an image stronger than how she ended the 2018 campaign. She is well positioned for a vigorous give and take against the Congresswoman this Fall.”
