Udall inching back towards a Senate run in New Mexico

Two weeks after announcing that he would not give up his House seat to run for Senate, Tom Udall is now on the way towards changing his mind. The Albuquerque Journal reports that "Udall's people have been making calls informing the state's Democratic heavyweights that Udall could jump in -- adding that Richardson had contacted Udall to tell him that he would not jump in the race and that Udall should not be worried about that. The major reason for this: The online Draft Udall movement (that made its way to the Washington Post), and, naturally, Chuck Schumer and the DSCC's intense lobbying.

Drafting Tom Udall would be a major get for Democrats in general, as Udall would be a very strong candidate, and for progressives in particular, as Udall is much more to the Left than Albuquerque Mayor Chavez who is walking away with the nomination right now, and who is not appreciated at all by his party's base. Udall has been elected statewide before, he was a two-term attorney general.

The first and only independent poll of the race, released a few weeks back by SUSA shows how strong Udall could be. He led the two Republican frontrunners by double digits: 55-37 against Pearce, and 56-38 against Wilson. Compare this with Chavez, who lost 56-35 against Pearce, and 48-44 against Wilson. Some of that difference can be attributed to name recognition, but Udall still managed to turn a 20 point deficit into a 20 point lead. In fact, Udall's numbers were very close to Richardson's, which is saying a lot about Udall's strength.

In other congressional news, here is a major reason to think Tom Davis might be inching towards retirement in VA-11. His wife is locked into a very tight re-election battle to the State Senate in Virginia, and the election is in 6 days. Davis just poured a gigantic $400,000 of his own congressional warchest into his wife's to help her win next Tuesday. Now, Davis is expected to face one of the toughest challenges of his career in 2008, and would he really be giving away his money if he was not retiring? On the other hand, it is his wife he is giving it too, so Davis might be sacrificing himself for his wife's sake...