The U.S.Senate Money Race

Democrat Martin Heinrich and Republican Heather Wilson are looking more like frontrunners in the U.S. Senate primaries with the release of their latest fundraising figures.

According emails and news released from the campaigns, Heinrich, currently a Congressman representing Albuquerque, raised more than $650,000 in the third quarter of the year. That’s better than twice that raised by his primary opponent, State Auditor Hector Balderas, who reported raising $250,000. Heinrich’s campaign says he has more than $1.1 million cash on hand. Balderas has $465,000, a campaign spokeswomen said.

In the GOP primary, Wilson, who held the Albuquerque Congressional seat before Heinrich, raised $530,000 between July and the end of September. She has nearly $1 million cash on hand, her campaign reported.

Wilson’s main opponent John Sanchez’s campaign just reported that Sanchez took in $164,000 in the last quarter, leaving him nearly $250,000 cash in hand.

I also haven’t heard yet from long-shot Republican candidate Greg Sowards, but Hotline this week reported that Sowards had raised more $231,000 in the third quarter, of which $185,000 was a loan from himself. Sowards, Hotline said, will report more than $496,000 in the bank.

The eventual winner of the Senate race will replace longtime Sen. Jeff Bingaman, a Democrat, who is retiring.

UPDATE: 405 p.m. The John Sanchez campaign emailed his figures right when I was writing this blog post. The post has been updated to reflect those figures.