You're invited to join us for ABQ Election Night coverage beginning at 7 p.m. on KANW 89.1 FM ABQ/Santa Fe and at KANW.COM

It's not just ABQ having an election today. Ballots are being cast across the state.

In Las Cruces the excitement has been building over their most crowded mayoral race since 1991--ten candidates are vying for the city's top job, including Mayor Ken Miyagishima who is seeking a fourth, four year term.

He was first elected back in 2007. Have voters tired of him? Former Las Cruces Mayor Bill Mattiace thinks so. He appears to be the top challenger to the mayor but Miyagishima has proven popular. In 2015 he took 51 percent of the vote in a three way race with his closet challenger getting just 33 percent.

There's new twist in the Cruces election. It's the first year that they have ranked choice voting. Voters have the option of choosing multiple candidates and ranking them first, second, third etc. Santa Fe used that method in its most recent mayoral election. It dramatically reduced negative campaigning as everyone wanted to be one of the top choices. Maybe too much. But ranked choice does produce winners and losers. No run-off elections later.

Here in ABQ there is still the run-off system. Tonight there's a chance that two city council contests could be decided in a December 10 run-off election between the two top votegetters in each district.

In District 2, mainly in the ABQ Valley, it's a six way race so a candidate getting to 50 percent and avoiding a run-off is a steep climb. In District 4 in the NE Heights it's a three candidate race. That one could also go to a run-off. Council Districts 6 and 8 each feature only two candidates and will be decided today.

After tonight the political junkies will be clamoring for 2020 election action and they are going to want more nourishing news than this:

Dem NM Senators Udall and Heinrich announced Monday that they have endorsed Dem US Rep. Bern Ray Lujan for the US Senate. A real shocker, that one. You can just see Republican Mick Rich weeping in the corner.

Heinrich's endorsement record hasn't been so hot. He went for Hillary in '16 and in '18 he went for land commission candidate Garrett VeneKlasen who lost in the Dem primary. Today he has three chances to reverse that trend. He has endorsed Councilors Benton and Davis and Dem council candidate Maurreen Skowran. If all three lose, Heinrich's endorsements might replace the newspaper's for being known as the "Kiss of Death." (Too late to take it back, Ben Ray.)

TURNOUT

It appears the new state law consolidating a lot of elections previously held separately will boost voter turnout. Bernalillo County Clerk Linda Stover reports 51,752 votes had been cast early as of late Monday with some more absentees expected today.

There's been a noticeable spike in turnout for the four contested city council races over 2015. We mean noticeable.

In District 2 in the ABQ Valley where Councilor Ike Benton is seeking re-election 5,872 early votes have been cast. In 2015 Benton was unopposed so the total vote then was just 2,631. This is a six way race that could be headed to a run-off.

In District 4 there have been 6,367 early votes cast. In '15 in that NE Heights district all votes cast totaled 4,982. That is a whopping increase in the district being vacated by GOP Councilor Winter. This is a three way race, with Dem And Romero trying to turn the district blue against R Brook Bassan. A third candidate Dem Athena Ann Christodoulou is in as well.

In District 6 in the SE Heights Clerk Stover reports 3,790 early votes. In '15 the total early and Election Day vote was 4,295. Councilor Pat Davis is seeking re-election in the district. He is opposed by attorney Gina Naomi Dennis.

In District 8 in the far NE Heights 8,188 early votes have been cast. In 2015, Republican Councilor Trudy Jones was unopposed and the total vote was only 3,112. She is opposed this year by Dem Maurreen Skowran and that mammoth increase in turnout could bode well for her. The Working Families Party and other progressive groups have targeted the increasingly blue district. We'll see tonight if the R's can keep pace.

There are 418, 867 registered voters in BernCo. If we get about 32,000 votes today that would make for 84,000 and a turnout of 20 percent. That's at the upper end of expectations.

Turnout here has been trending higher in the Trump years. We'll know soon if that holds true for this election.

ELECTION NIGHT COVERAGE

Sonntag

The campaign closes out today with Election Day voting and the vote count commencing at 7 p.m. We'll do our part as we broadcast ABQ results beginning at 7 p.m. on KANW 89.1 FM ABQ/Santa Fe and KANW.COM. We anticipate having the early BernCo vote--which is expected to make up a majority of the votes cast--sometime in that 7 o'clock hour. The outcome of most if not all the races and ballot issues should be known from those early results so we're preparing for a short evening.

We look forward to having you with us as we welcome to the public radio microphones for insightful analysis City Councilor Ken Sanchez, Carla Sonntag, president of the NM Business Coalition and Valencia County's own veteran Dem political consultant Sisto Abeyta.

TWO NOT THREE

We dropped the ball when we said there were only two Hispanic ABQ city councilors on the nine member council in our first blog draft Monday. There are three---Ken Sanchez, Klarissa Pena and the one we forgot--westside Councilor Cynthia Borrego. Come on, Joe, you gotta do better than that tonight. (We will).

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(c)NM POLITICS WITH JOE MONAHAN 2019