Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest: Trio of dueling internal polls causes a (New) Mexican standoff

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' NM-01: Bernalillo County Commissioner Michelle Lujan Grisham came out with an internal poll of the three-way Democratic primary (courtesy Greenberg Quinlan Rosner) on Tuesday, prompting her rivals to follow suit. Lujan Grisham's survey has her tied with state Sen. Eric Griego at 35 apiece, while former Albuquerque mayor Marty Chavez is back in third with 23%. A trendline included in the memo aims to show that Grisham is "surging": At the end of February, her own polling had Chavez at 37, Griego at 28, and herself at 24.

Griego responded with his own internal from GBA Strategies that puts him up 35-30 over Lujan Grisham, with Chavez again in last place at 28. To make his own claim to momentum, Griego also included an earlier poll result from late February/early March which was almost identical to Lujan Grisham's: Chavez 37, Griego 30, and Lujan Grisham 24. So both agree that Chavez once had a lead, that he's since slipped to the bottom of the pile, and that both Griego and Lujan Grisham have seen their numbers increase. The only dispute'and it's a crucial one'is over how much they've each gone up.

Meanwhile, Chavez's own numbers are a lot sketchier. He apparently isn't revealing the name of his pollster, but according to the New Mexico telegram, his survey was "an automated poll of over 1900 respondents" taken this past weekend. What's more, Chavez's usual pollster is Lake Research, and this certainly doesn't sound like a Lake poll. I wouldn't be surprised if Chavez learned his opponents had been in the field and decided that he needed to hustle out a new poll of his own showing him in not-as-dire straits. But his own numbers aren't very good anyway: Chavez 26, Lujan Grisham 25, and Griego 24.

What's heartening about the two more reputable polls (from Griego and Lujan Grisham) is that left-leaning voters apparently are not splitting the vote in such a way as to benefit the conservaDem Chavez. Let's just hope this holds until primary day on June 5.