A sigh of relief in Santa Fe. Things don't look quite as bad as the bean counters have been predicting: 

The current state budget is $7.2 billion so we're on track to avoid big budget cuts. And get this. State reserves are expected to swell to over 29 percent percent or $2.1 billion as we head into the next budget year. That budget gets hammered out at the legislative session in January.

While the budget news is less gloomy we still have heavy lifting to do to get people back to work:

When the legislative session gets underway who will be filling the powerful position of Senate President Pro Tem, the Senator who determines who sits on what committees? Well, add ABQ Dem state Senator Jerry Ortiz y Pino to the list of possibles and also northern Sen. Pete Campos. They join ABQ Sen. Ivey-Soto who has already said he' d like the job. Two women senators--ABQ's Mimi Stewart and Santa Fe's Nancy Rodriguez are also said by Roundhouse watchers to be interested. 

Back on the campaign trail the state GOP comes with a 60 second ad titled "Save New Mexico" that features Democrats who have switched to the R's. The party says the ad "showcases the fears, frustrations and anger among Democrats who feel betrayed or abandoned by the Party’s radical shift to the left."

The ad onslaught continues in the hotly contested southern congressional race between R Yvette Herrell and Dem Rep. Xochitl Torres Small. Here's Torres Small's latest--on prescription drug costs. (Hey, a Xochitl commercial without a gun? What's that race coming to?)

New Mexico's election system wins praise in a write-up from digital news site "The Fulcrum: 

With county clerks set to begin mailing absentee ballots out October 6, the US Senate campaign of Dem Rep. Ben Ray Lujan comes with what it hopes will be one of the death blows to the campaign of Republican rival Mark Ronchetti. Their new ad ties Ronchetti to President Trump and his handling of the coronavirus and his push to overturn the Affordable Care Act. For the first time Lujan puts photos of Ronchetti and Trump together on the screen. Trump remains  unpopular in the state's major cities of ABQ, Santa Fe and Las Cruces. In the month ago ABQ Journal poll Biden led Trump in NM, 54-39 percent. 

Ronchetti is not from the Trump wing of the party and has not been openly embracing the President. This is Lujan's attempt to push them together and increase his polling lead from the 49 to 40 percent in last month's ABQ Journal poll that has given Ronchetti's supporters hope that they can pull off a major upset. Ronchetti has received some PAC support and there has been a barrage of negative TV against Lujan.

Ronchetti, a longtime TV weather forecaster, is an accomplished performer and his ads reflect that. Compared to Ronchetti's polish before the camera, Lujan has sometimes appeared to have a forced smile and be a bit stiff, but his producers have been improving. This new ad touting Lujan's support of Sandia and Los Alamos National Labs is an example.