Letter to My Supporters

June 4, 2008

Dear Friends & Supporters,

I just wanted to write you a brief note expressing my gratitude for everything you did to support my recent bid for the New Mexico State Senate. As you know, I was forced to drop out back in April after my company notified me back in January that they would fire me if I won this election because they could not spare me for the three months I would have to take off work to spend voting on my various committees in Santa Fe. Unfortunately, my several month long attempt to find alternate employment in the greater Albuquerque area was unsuccessful and so in late April I found myself confronted with a decision whether to get elected or lose my means of supporting my family.

It was a very difficult decision to drop out of the race and one I only made after much prayer and discussion with my family. Ultimately, I decided that it would be unfair to my family to put them through what probably would have been several months of unemployment, financial hardship and uncertainty so that I could realize my dream of making a difference in terms of furthering good conservative and Christian principles in the State Senate for the good of the people of the great State of New Mexico.

I told my wife I was expecting to receive about a third of the votes cast, but you know as I watched the returns come in on Election night this past Tuesday evening, I was very surprised to see how close the race was. The first results I saw were 58-42% which I thought was a very decent showing for a candidate that dropped out five weeks earlier and stopped active campaigning a couple weeks prior to that. Then, it was 56-44, then 55-45 and then 54-46 with 23% reporting and a few thousand votes left to count and I began to wonder if I might actually win even after having left the race. The final tally was 53.8% for Sander Rue and 46.2% for me so I ended up losing by only seven and a half points which was an incredible showing considering the fact that my departure from the race was covered in all the major newspapers several weeks ago!

I am very humbled by all the support I received not only from you but from many elected and party leaders and I have no doubt that had I stayed in the race that I would have won a convincing victory given your strong support and would today be a State Senator Elect. Though we had a number of key differences on the issues and though Sander attacked me for my alleged "radical ideas" and "radical record," which he failed to specify since of course his allegations lacked any substance, in a letter he sent out back in April, I congratulate him on his narrow victory because at least it means that the 23rd State Senate district will remain in Republican hands at least for the next four years. In fact, thanks to my critique of his more liberal positions on the issues, I was happy to see that he went ahead and adopted a number of my campaign positions in support of the right to life, in opposition to amnesty for illegals and in defense of traditional marriage which he had never held before so I will leave it to you the voters to hold his feet to the fire and make sure that he votes in accordance with his rhetoric.

I would also like to say that I was very happy to see Rep. Steve Pearce, whom I strongly endorsed for the US Senate, win a very close victory over Rep. Heather Wilson who has a much less conservative record. I was, however, sad to see my friend Senator Joe Carraro lose his congressional primary in the 1st District to a candidate who is much less conservative and who appears to be neither truly pro-life or anti-illegal immigration and was disappointed to see my friend Marco Gonzales narrowly defeated in his bid for the Republican nomination in the 3rd District as well, but I guess we have to take our disappointments along with our successes. Now, I urge you all to give Steve Pearce's campaign the same energy and support which you gave mine to ensure his victory over ultra-liberal Rep. Tom Udall and help keep Pete Domenici's Senate seat in the Republican column. In addition, I urge you to support my friend Dan East for Congress, our new Republican nominee in the 3rd District. Dan is a solid pro-life conservative who can lead us to victory over Ben Ray Lujan in November and return the seat to Republican hands.

Thank you again for all of your support for my campaign and may God bless you and your families!

Best regards,

David Pyne
Fmr. State Senate candidate
23rd District
505-908-1033
Pyne4statesenate@gmail.com