Wednesday, October 21, 2020Dwindling Campaign Days As Heavy Voting Continues; Campaign Trail Action In The South, Latest Polling In Senate Race, Ink-Stained Wretches Slammed By Rep. Haaland And A Big To-Do Over Howie Sighting Early votes are closing in on 325,000. By week's end well over half of the expected total vote will have been cast because of pandemic-prompted voting. Let's head out to the trail and see how the hopefuls are handling this new political order. . .
Southern GOP congressional hopeful Yvette Herrell repeated an unfounded claim on Mark Levin's national radio program Tuesday night, alleging that the 2018 election was stolen from her. Levin opined that Herrell's first race against Dem Xochitl Torres Small was stolen and Herrell responded: We're not going to let them steal it this time, I promise. Herrell lost the '18 race by 3,500 votes. She was declared the winner election night but uncounted absentee ballots later gave the victory to XTS. Herrell's campaign investigated the outcome but decided not to contest the election, yet she persists in claiming election fraud even though it would have taken voter fraud on a massive and unprecedented scale to alter the results. Herrell also told conservative powerhouse Levin that she is now being outspent 4 to 1 by Torres Small. That shows in the TV ads where Herrell is clearly outmatched, even with national PAC support. None of the major DC ratings pundits have moved the race from the "toss up" column and the torrent of ads continue. The early September ABQ Journal poll gave Torres Small a 47 to 45 lead. A later GOP poll had Herrell up two. One ominous sign for Herrell in the Journal survey was Trump's slim four point lead in the district, much less than the 10 points he won by there in '16. Herrell's interview with Levin can be heard on his Oct. 19 stream starting at the 1:39 mark. SENATOR LUJAN? Polling in the US Senate race has remained stable for nearly two months, with Dem Rep. Ben Ray Lujan consistently holding about a ten point lead over Republican Mark Ronchetti. Lujan has released a GBAO survey taken for his campaign that has him at 51.5%, Ronchetti at 41.2% and Libertarian Bob Walsh at 5%. The poll was conducted Oct. 14-17 among 600 likely voters and used both landlines and cellphones. It has a margin of error of 4 percent. In the Dem-oriented PPP poll conducted Sept. 30-Oct.1 it was Lujan leading 51-41-3. In the ABQ Journal early September survey Lujan had 49%, Ronchetti 40% and 4% for Walsh. Ronchetti has been on the attack for better than a month trying to bring Lujan down. Partisans hope if he can't pull off a huge upset that he is able to trim the margin of any loss to the low single digits. They believe that might give him future political viability. Tonight's 7 p.m. US Senate debate on KOAT-TV will be different than the other two TV debates held. It will not include Libertarian candidate Bob Walsh, leaving Lujan and Ronchetti to clash for the hour. The station says: A third candidate does appear on the ballot, Libertarian candidate Bob Walsh, whom KOAT determined lacked the campaign funding and polling positions to be granted an invitation to the debate. SLAMMING THE INK-STAINED 
Progressive ABQ US Rep. Deb Haaland never had much of a chance of securing the endorsement of the conservative editorial pages of the ABQ Journal but it still upset her when her GOP opponent Michelle Garcia Holmes got their nod: Of course they didn’t endorse our campaign. I’m too progressive, too bold. . . I speak up for working people. . . . We need a healthcare system that works for all of us, not just the lucky few. We must stop being so reliant on an oil and gas based economy but diversify our economy and push forward a renewable energy revolution, while tackling climate change. . . We need a $15 min wage, because single parents shouldn’t have to work 3 jobs to keep a roof over their kids’ heads. The truth is — I see a New Mexico that is different from them. I see a bright future for all of us. On the other hand Dem Rep. Xochitl Torres Small was pleased with the editorial backing from the ink-stained wretches, with her campaign saying: The ABQ Journal editorial board endorsed Rep. Torres Small’s re-election, calling her “a rising star in Congress” and making clear “she deserves to be re-elected.” The editorial board, which has not endorsed a Democrat for this seat in over 20 years, highlighted Torres Small’s commitment to bipartisan solutions and her effectiveness in her first term as reasons voters should elect her to another term. THERE'S HOWIE! The Alligators blew up the iPhones (no Samsungs for them) during MLG's Covid briefing Tuesday. Not because of the new restrictions she placed on businesses but because of a rare and unexpected appearance at the zoom briefing by Lt. Gov. Howie Morales.
Howie read a brief two minute cheerleading message from a teleprompter and came across calm and collected. It was like he could smell the steak on the grill, but couldn't yet take a bite. By the way the Guv did not think much of the theory heard here and elsewhere that the severe virus outbreaks at the state's jails and prisons deserve more attention because they could be the source of spreading the virus. She and her health experts maintained the community spread is coming from the general public, not from those locked up and later released. And another by the way. The Guv's office could not get her Facebook feed to work for the briefing and sent the audience to one of the TV stations for the live stream. Now she knows how thousands of school kids have felt this year as they wrestled at home with computer and broadband issues. Frustrated. This is the home of New Mexico politics. E-mail your news and comments. (newsguy@yahoo.com) Interested in reaching New Mexico's most informed audience? Advertise here. |
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