Heinrich, Griego win pre-primaries, Balderas with a strong showing

Martin Heinrich and Eric Griego eked out victories in the Democratic pre-primary convention’s two marquee contests.

Heinrich’s victory was smaller than expected, with a passionate base of Balderas giving the candidate a solid 45.35 percent percent to Heinrich’s 54.77 percent. The solid showing by Balderas is a boost to the underdog campaign that is outfundraised and outpolled by Heinrich.

Griego prevailed with 40.72 percent on 281 votes of the vote to Chavez’s 33.33 percent on 230 total votes and Lujan-Grisham’s 25.94 percent (missed the vote total).

The three-way race for the 1st Congressional District garnered much of the attention coming into the primaries. Whispers about negative campaigning, when the other races featured candidates who have refrained from even obliquely mentioning their opponents, helped pique interest in the final results.

In other contests, Ben Ray Lujan and Evelyn Madrid Erhard each were the only candidates to clear 20 percent in the 3rd and 2nd congressional district races, respectively.

To automatically get their name on the ballot, a delegate was required to get 20 percent of the vote of delegates.

There were 1673 total votes cast.

The Telegram will have a full recap of the pre-primary later tonight, but you can read the live dispatches from the Albuquerque Convention Center here and here.