Heather Wilson - 2012 U.S. Senate Campaign

2012 U.S. Senate Campaign

On March 7, 2011, Wilson formally entered the race to fill retiring Senator Jeff Bingaman's seat. While Lieutenant Governor John Sanchez and Las Cruces Businessman Greg Sowards announced their candidacies for the Republican nomination as Tea Party conservatives, Sanchez withdrew from the race in February 2012 and endorsed Wilson. At the state convention in March 2012, Wilson told Republican delegates that, "We won't always agree on everything, but I won't play political games and I will always tell you the truth." Wilson secured 83% of the votes from the convention, forcing Sowards to get more signatures to qualify for the ballot.

Sowards attacked Wilson in direct mail and via the internet for being too moderate but was never able to generate enthusiasm for his candidacy. Wilson won the Republican primary 70% to 30% on June 5, 2012.

The general election matched Wilson against Congressman Martin Heinrich, who succeeded her in the House of Representatives. While Heinrich, a former Sierra Club activist, was the most liberal candidate ever to face Wilson, he largely avoided unscripted public events and ran as a champion of the middle class who will protect Social Security.

A coalition of environmental groups spent $1.5 million on television advertising in the summer attacking Wilson. Wilson fought back over the fall, highlighting Heinrich's failure to protect jobs at New Mexico's national labs and military bases, and his votes against New Mexico's important energy industry, but she was not able to match the grassroots effort of the Obama campaign and its allies. They mobilized thousands of young and low income voters in Albuquerque who had first registered in 2008 to vote for President Obama. Governor Romney and his allies had no comparable voter registration and mobilization effort in New Mexico. While New Mexico Republicans and Wilson in particular have always done much better among Hispanics than Republicans in other parts of the country, Wilson was also burdened by the increasingly negative brand identity of her party nationally among Hispanics.

While Wilson lost the general election 50-45, she out-performed Governor Romney by 5%. Heinrich's entire margin of victory was in Albuquerque and Santa Fe, while Wilson won the rural and energy producing areas of the state.