The woman on the other end of the line told a volunteer for Don Wiviott's campaign that she was torn over whom to vote for in Tuesday's election.

Like other voters in the 3rd Congressional District, the Raton resident has a decision to make on who will next represent Northern New Mexico in the House of Representatives. The woman said she had narrowed it down to two candidates: Wiviott and Monty Newman.

But there's a problem with one of those choices: Democrat Wiviott indeed is a candidate for the 3rd District seat, but Newman is a Republican running for the 2nd Congressional District in Southern New Mexico.

"It just shows there's so many candidates and so many people who are undecided," said Webster Cash, Wiviott's spokesman.

With so many choices — six Democrats and two Republicans are vying for the seat U.S. Rep. Tom Udall is giving up, and the state's other two congressional races are almost as crowded — the number of undecided voters is high this year.

Nowhere is that more apparent than the Democratic primary for the 3rd Congressional District.

Besides developer Wiviott, other Democrats in the race include Public Regulation Commissioner Ben Ray Luján, Santa Fe County Commissioner Harry Montoya, former Indian Affairs Department Secretary Benny Shendo Jr. and lawyers Jon Adams of Santa Fe and Rudy Martin of Dixon.

The GOP candidates are lawyer Marco Gonzales of Santa Fe and Rio Rancho construction company owner Dan East.

And don't forget the U.S. Senate race. The congressional races are hectic this year because all three current House of Representatives members — Democrat Udall and Republicans Heather Wilson and Steve Pearce — are running for the Senate seat being vacated by six-term Sen. Pete Domenici, a Republican who decided not to run this time after being diagnosed with an incurable brain disease. Udall is unopposed in the Democratic Senate race, but Wilson and Pearce have made the GOP primary exciting.

Competitive race

Luján, son of House Speaker Ben Luján, is ahead in the only publicly released poll. But, according to the Albuquerque Journal survey, 33 percent of voters haven't made up their minds.

And so it seems the first competitive race in Northern New Mexico since 1998 might be a nail-biter until election night is over. "I think that it has the potential to be very close, given there are so many undecideds. It's really unclear," said Lonna Atkeson, a political science professor at The University of New Mexico.

"If (Ben Ray) Luján were running away with it, we'd know."

One big unknown for Tuesday, of course, is who will make it to the polls. "The question is: Are the undecideds going to show up? People who know who they are supporting are probably going to show up," Atkeson said. "Republicans should have a higher turnout because of the Senate race."

Another unknown is whether the congressional races garner enough interest by themselves to draw Democratic voters. In February, the party picked U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton in the New Mexico presidential caucus. Republicans, however, will chose a presidential candidate, and Sen. John McCain and U.S. Rep. Ron Paul are on the ballot.

"There's nothing driving this (Democratic primary) race at the top of the ticket to turn people out," Atkeson said. "There has to be a huge effort this weekend."

As of Friday afternoon 2,688 Democrats and 641 Republicans had voted early in Santa Fe County, and 1,493 Democrats and 421 Republicans voted by absentee ballot.

By comparison, in the 2004 primary, 3,401 Democrats and 354 Republicans voted early, including 1,199 Democrats and 316 Republicans who voted absentee.

If voter turnout is low, it's not for a lack of interesting events in this primary, although many observers say the race seemed fairly dull until a forum in Farmington on May 19.

At the event, Shendo raised a question that implied Ben Ray Luján is gay and covering it up. Shendo hasn't offered proof or corroboration that Luján is gay. And Luján denies it.

That move touched off a firestorm of criticism, both of Shendo for his comments and of The New Mexican for covering the story.

In addition, the race has become known for its negative ads, started by Wiviott's campaign. He has suggested in ads that Ben Ray Luján isn't qualified for the job and only got work in state government because of his dad. The Wiviott campaign also blasted Luján for missing meetings of a commission he was appointed to that is not a required part of his PRC duties.

In turn, Ben Ray Luján went negative against Wiviott, pointing out troubles one of his businesses had with the Federal Trade Commission and community opposition to one of his developments in Santa Fe.

Ben Ray Luján later came back with an ad defending his work on the Public Regulation Commission.

When the battle raged via 30-second TV slaps, face-to-face confrontations between the candidates faded. Even before his attack ads began, Wiviott disappeared from the debate circuit, offering excuses including illness, in one case, and the all-encompassing "scheduling conflicts" in at least one other.

Both candidates skipped a forum last week at Santa Ana Pueblo. And producers of KNME's In Focus said on the air it was impossible to get Ben Ray Luján, Wiviott and Shendo to agree to sit down at the same table for a televised forum. Pundits in a panel discussion after the forum expressed dismay that candidates didn't want to directly confront their opponents and make their own cases.

Little has been heard from the other candidates as far as advertising goes, although Montoya at one point had ads on TV, and Shendo planned to start airing them today.

The lower-tier campaign has consisted mostly of electronic campaigning through e-mails and on blogs.

But for those with the cash, it's been all about the tube. Wiviott had aired five television ads as of Friday, and Ben Ray Luján had four.

Those ads were paid for by one of the largest sprees of campaign spending the district has seen. So far, Wiviott has spent more than $1.2 million. Almost all of that is his own money. Luján, as of his latest report, had spent $439,733. Others in the race were far behind in raising money.

The last full campaign finance reports were filed May 14. However, under federal law, candidates must report contributions of $1,000 or more within 48 hours of receiving them.

Luján's most recent contributors include: Dave Contarino, ($2,300), former chief of staff and campaign manager for Bill Richardson; Sonny Otero, president of La Compania Management and a major Richardson contributor, ($1,250); investor William C. Windham of Bossier City, La., another Richardson contributor and someone who has invested in New Mexico racetracks, ($2,300); lobbyist Robert Rivera, ($2,300); lawyer and state House candidate Brian Egolf Jr. of Santa Fe ($1,500); lawyer and Democratic activist Gene Gallegos ($1,250); Inder Jit Kaur of Albuquerque ($2,300); Virgil Beagles of Roswell, ($1,000); Santa Fe lawyer Paul David Mannick, ($1,400); Albuquerque lawyer Beatriz Rivera, ($1,000); Greg Owen Shade, a Corrales builder, ($1,000); and John Strong, a local art gallery owner, ($1,000).

Wiviott on Wednesday kicked in another $7,000, which brings the amount of money he's spent to about $1.5 million counting money he put out last year on a U.S. Senate campaign before switching to the House election.

Other recent contributions reported came from Alan Wolf, an Atlanta, Ga., lawyer ($2,300); Harry Shapiro, owner of Harry's Road House near Santa Fe, ($1,000); and local writer Alan Webber, ($1,000).

Shendo's most recent reported contributors include the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians, which owns San Manuel Indian Bingo and Casino near Highland, Calif. ($4,600); Santo Domingo Pueblo ($1,000); R.L. Burns of Rancho Santa Fe, Calif., ($1,000); Leonard Pitzalis of Oceanside, Calif. ($2,300); and Michael Kent Klee, a Kentucky entrepreneur, ($2,300).

Montoya's campaign reported a $1,000 contribution from Phillip Diaz, chief operating officer of Aspire Behavioral Health in Winterpark, Fla.

The Senate race

Watching Democrats rip each other to shreds in a primary election is nothing new. It's almost part of the party culture.

But seeing Republicans do the same thing is rare in New Mexico. That's what's been happening in the heated GOP Senate race between U.S. Reps. Heather Wilson, 47, who was state Children, Youth and Families secretary before getting elected to Congress, and Steve Pearce, 60, who made his fortune in the oilfield services business.

Wilson is "too liberal to serve in New Mexico" and "tends to take both sides of an issue," Pearce said at a televised debate last week.

Wilson, responding to the "liberal" charge, said, "It's amazing to me that someone who is a pro-life, pro-Second Amendment, strong supporter of free enterprise, cut-taxes, fair-regulation, pro-defense Republican is called a 'liberal.' And maybe that tells us just how far out of the mainstream Steve Pearce is."

In truth, Wilson and Pearce are fairly close to one another in following the Republican Party line in Congress. According to the Washington Post Votes Database, in the current session of Congress, Wilson has voted with her party nearly 88 percent of the time and Pearce almost 94 percent.

Still, Pearce has won the support of anti-tax, anti-abortion and other conservative groups, some of which have run television ads vilifying Wilson.

The most visible is Club For Growth, which Pearce calls "a respected group that measures waste, fraud and abuse in the government," but Wilson says is "a small group of millionaires, none of whom are in the state of New Mexico, who support an agenda that is contrary to the interests of the state of New Mexico in many respects." Club for Growth has spent about $400,000 on television commercials calling attention to Wilson's "liberal" record.

But the ads might have backfired.

In a late-breaking — and rather bizarre — development in the campaign, Domenici, who two weeks before said he would make no endorsement, had changed his mind by Friday. Wilson announced during Friday's debate that Domenici had endorsed her, and the senator confirmed it in a statement released afterward

Domenci said a major factor was the Club for Growth ads, which lambasted Wilson for supporting the State Children's Health Insurance Program, which Domenici also supports. The senator had asked Pearce to demand the organization pull the ads, and the organization responded with another spot aimed at Wilson's "liberal" record.

Wilson has accused Pearce of casting votes against Los Alamos National Laboratory, training for immigration officers and "widows and orphans" as part of his "narrow ideological agenda." Pearce says he consistently votes against waste in government.

A SurveyUSA poll, sponsored by KOB-TV, taken May 12 and 14, showed Pearce only 3 percentage points ahead of Wilson, 49-46 percent. But the poll represented a huge leap for Pearce, who had gained 12 points since the previous SurveyUSA poll in November.

But the mid-May poll showed Udall beating Wilson as well as Pearce by more than 20 percentage points. Both Republicans pulled less than 40 percent in match-ups against Udall. However, most expect the race to tighten by November as the national parties pour money into New Mexico. The seat could be crucial in determining whether Democrats win a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate.

Speaking of money, according to campaign finance reports, Pearce had raised $1.7 million as of May 14 and spent $1.5 million, leaving $247,207 cash on hand. The campaign is nearly $200,000 in debt, the report says.

Wilson had raised a total of $2.3 million, according to the last report, spending nearly $1.7 million. She had $712,476 cash on hand May 14.

Both Wilson and Pearce have pledged to support the winner of the Republican primary in the general election against Udall.

Contact Kate Nash at 986-3036 or knash@sfnewmexican.com. Contact Steve Terrell at 986-3037 or by e-mail at sterrell@sfnewmexican.com