Primary victor Rep. Pearce looks to prove doubters wrong against Udall

{mosimage}Rep. Steve Pearce (R-N.M.) defeated one of the most battle-tested Republicans in Congress on Tuesday, but to win a Senate seat he’ll have to come from behind to beat a proven statewide candidate with a golden name.

Pearce earned the right to take on Rep. Tom Udall (D-N.M.) after narrowly defeating Rep. Heather Wilson in the GOP primary. Pearce won 51-49, withstanding a late endorsement for Wilson from outgoing Sen. Pete Domenici (R-N.M.).

The Pearce-Udall match-up provides a more distinct ideological contrast than the alternative, as Pearce tapped his conservative base to defeat the more centrist Wilson. Many experts see this working against Republicans in a state that’s known for going as the country goes and in a race in which Udall starts with a 20-plus point lead.

The latest SurveyUSA poll on the general-election match-up put Udall ahead of Pearce 60-35. Although Wilson faced nearly the same deficit according to polls, Republicans could miss several of her qualities, said Jennifer Duffy, a Senate race analyst at The Cook Political Report.

{mosads}“Wilson would have been the stronger general-election candidate, given her base in Albuquerque, her history of winning tough elections and her ability to raise money,” Duffy said.

Pearce’s campaign says the GOP nominee’s conservatism will tap into the state’s true values and provide more contrast to Udall’s liberal record.

“We believe in lower taxes, less regulation and less wasteful spending, and Tom Udall has a reprehensible record on all three of those issues,” Pearce spokesman Brian Phillips said.

New Mexico political analyst Joe Monahan said Wilson has proven to be a strong closer but that the jury’s out on whether she is stronger overall than Pearce.

“Pearce having deep ties in New Mexico and going through a tough campaign now, and Udall having not been through a tough campaign, maybe that’ll give Pearce a little bit of a leg up,” Monahan said. “But there’s no question this state is leaning Democrat for the Senate race, and Pearce has a long way to go and a lot to prove.”

Despite his early advantage, it’s been a long time since Udall has been seriously tested in a campaign, and he was unopposed in the Democratic primary this year.

Udall, who hails from a family sometimes described as the “Kennedys of the West,” has easily won reelection every time since winning the seat with 53 percent in 1998. Prior to serving as attorney general, he did lose two congressional races in the 1980s.

Pearce lost a Senate primary badly in 2000 but rallied to win a five-way House primary in 2002 with 35 percent of the vote. He looked to face a tough general election, and the race polled close, but Pearce wound up easily defeating a socially conservative Democrat, 56-44.

Domenici, who tried to sway the election in favor of his protégé Wilson by offering an eleventh-hour endorsement this past weekend, declined to say whether Pearce would have a more difficult time against Udall.

Wilson has won close, high-stakes races in nearly every election over the last 10 years, including by less than 1 percent in 2006.

“I look forward to working with him,” Domenici said of Pearce Wednesday morning. “It’s going to be a hard race. He won — not by a big margin, but he won.”

Domenici opted to leave the Senate after being diagnosed with a degenerative brain condition. Of Wilson’s loss, he said, “Of course I’m disappointed.”

Republicans will now be confronted with picking up the pieces from a rough Senate primary in which Pearce and Wilson were forced to go after each other hard.

Wilson quickly moved to get the party behind Pearce on Wednesday, endorsing him and looking forward to the task at hand.

“After a tough campaign like this, if you can heal the party, this will be good for Pearce in the general, because he’s been attacked, he’s had to respond, he’s in full battle mode,” Monahan said.

Democrats signaled after Pearce’s win that they would go after his ties to oil — a trendy issue with gas prices so high. Pearce ran an oil-field service company prior to getting into politics.

Udall’s first ads in the race have focused on his work as a prosecutor, attorney general and congressman and the things he has done to fight special interests.

“New Mexico will face a real choice in November between a principled leader in Tom Udall and a Bush partisan in Steve Pearce whose career is marked by his longtime advocacy for the special interests that fund his campaigns,” said a spokesman for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, Matthew Miller.

GOPers have constantly tried to label Udall as a liberal.

On Wednesday, they pointed to comments from his one-time primary opponent, Albuquerque Mayor Martin Chavez, who labeled him “far to the left” when the race was in its early stages.

National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman John Ensign (Nev.) said Udall “will face a battle-tested, proven candidate in Steve Pearce. I am confident that he will be able to out-campaign Tom Udall in New Mexico.”