"Mayors' Races That Won't Even Be Close"

Updated: 12:40 pm

Some races around the country will be clearly competitive, including the open seat races in Houston, Atlanta, Seattle Charlotte, Miami and even Toledo. Others, in cities like New York, likely will not be close according to a national blog.

We still don't know just how close the three-way race for mayor is in Albuquerque, because there hasn't been any published or broadcast polling, and the campaigns are not sharing their own internal polling.

We anticipate the Albuquerque Journal will publish its polling results on Sunday, Sept 27th -- just one week before the election.

Josh Goodman, who writes for Ballot Box, a blog which covers City Hall politics (among other things), wrote yesterday:

Albuquerque Mayor Martin Chavez is facing two state legislators who are giving him a stiff test.

Well, Goodman got it half right. Romero is a former state senate president pro-tem and State Representative Richard "RJ" Berry has been juggling summer sub-committee meetings with his mayoral campaign.

Goodman says there won't be much suspense in the New York City mayor's race, "Michael Bloomberg has led in every poll by double digits. His lead, combined with his limitless supply of campaign cash, suggests to me that, just like in 2005."

His post also provides analysis on mayors' races in Detroit, Pittsburgh, St. Paul, Minneapolis, Raleigh, and say's the safest incumbent is in Buffalo. Byron Brown won re-election there on Tuesday.

The closest race appears to be in Boston, home of the New England Patriots (okay, so I'm a huge fan of the team). Goodman wrote:

The toughest case is Boston. There's a reason that Thomas Menino is sometimes called "mayor for life." He's been mayor for 16 years, winning reelection easily three times. In the most recent poll of which I'm aware, he scored a 73% approval rating.

To avoid a runoff election in Albuquerque, one of the three candidates will have to at least 40% of the vote.