White Confident He Has Resources and Ideas to Win.

NMFBIHOP and the New Mexico Independent are reporting the NRCC has withdrawn financial support for up to twenty Republican congressional candidates nationwide. But, Darren White's campaign released a statement late this afternoon saying they're confident they have the resources and are on the right side of the issues to beat Martin Heinrich, who they say is too liberal to represent the district:

We are in a strong position financially, and have our television time booked through Election Day. We always knew we were going to be outspent in this race, and we budgeted and planned appropriately. We are confident that we will have the resources necessary to win this race.

From LP at NMFBIHOP:

The NRCC has cut two of three weeks of an expected media buy for White.

UPDATED 5:20 pm

In August we interviewed NRCC Chairman Rep. Tom Cole. He told us in this audio interview Darren is has a unique background and record of independent accomplishments. He also advised White to to run against Washington, D.C. Cole also pledged financial support, saying "I'm sure your going to be seeing a lot of television commercials in the next 85 days.

Update 2 - 5:34 pm

But now Sue Major Holmes with Associated Press is reporting executives at the local stations said Thursday "none of the canceled buys were aimed at a particular candidate."

They don't stipulate what the ad is (in advance). ... I can't tell you it was designated for a specific candidate," said Jeff McCallister, director of sales for KRQE.

Susan Hern, assistant to the national sales manager for KOB, echoed that.

"We can't say they are specific for any candidate. We have no way of knowing until the ad really starts," she said. "It doesn't say in the contract."

The campaign of Democratic 1st Congressional District candidate Martin Heinrich contended the canceled television ads -- two weeks out of a three-week buy -- were a vote of no confidence by the national GOP in Republican candidate Darren White.

But White's campaign said the national party has canceled television ads in other states as well. National reports say Republican House and Senate committees are pulling out of several places, said Stephen Schatz, spokesman for White.

"We always knew the NRCC ad budget was not the most prolific, so we always anticipated when we were doing our fundraising that anything the NRCC would do would be in addition to what we did," Schatz said.

Ken Spain, press secretary for the NRCC in Washington, D.C., said Thursday the committee doesn't comment on strategy.

New Mexico's 1st District race, he said, "remains a high-profile race and we plan to make the case to voters that there is a clear choice between Darren White ... and Martin Heinrich."

Last month, the national Republicans' Senate campaign arm called off television ads that were to air in New Mexico to support Steve Pearce in the run-up to Election Day.

The National Republican Senatorial Committee's decision to cancel the spots reflected its priorities during a tough year for the GOP, with the party lagging badly in fundraising and resigned to losing seats in the Senate.

The NRSC pulled the New Mexico ads a little more than a week after Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., the committee's chairman, announced he would scale back advertising in battleground states because Republican senators haven't contributed enough money to compete with Democrats.

Meanwhile Heinrich, who is still shuffling his staff, issued this statement through a new spokesman, Jason Burke:

Back in August, the NRCC reserved $731,690 in advertising on behalf of Darren White from October 14 to November 4th [NRCC to spend $731k on TV ads in 1st District Race, 8/27/08]. The NRCC has now slashed two weeks out of the three-week buy, cutting an estimated $500,000 in financial support from the White campaign.

LP reports:

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has already spent $866,746.05 in the 1st Congressional district, much of those expenditures on TV ads.

According to FEC reports, the DCCC led the NRCC on cash on hand by a wide margin; the NRCC had just $14.2 million cash on hand as of September 1. The DCCC had nearly $54 million at that time.