KANW Election Night (Bralley)

With Primary '26 in the books, we're taking a blogging break so posts will be occasional. To be notified via email whenever we add a post, subscribe to the blog by using the link on the right. Thanks for your continued interest. Now a final look at the election that was. . .

Now what? That's the question hanging over La Politica in the aftermath of a primary election that settled the battles for party nominations but left only scraps to pick over in the general election. 

That election looks to be one of the most noncompetitive in years with only a few exceptions.

The US Senate race features a Republican write-in candidate who scored enough votes Tuesday to get his name on the ballot. And that's where the movement stops. Sen. Ben Ray Lujan will not get a well-financed challenge and the race is over before it starts. Forward Party candidate Bob Perls is trying to make the ballot. The outcome will have little impact.

The race for the southern congressional district featuring Dem US Rep. Gabe Vasquez seeking a third term against Republican challenger and Trump-endorsed Greg Cunningham will flare up in the early going with the GOP testing to see if the race can be made competitive. Vasquez claimed a second term in '24 by10,000 votes. The race looks like his to lose. The seat is no longer ranked a toss-up but is "lean Dem."

The other other two congressional races are nonstarters. Reps. Stansbury and Leger Fernandez just have to keep breathing.   

The race for Governor. Republican Gregg Hull has precious little time to make the race with Deb Haaland competitive, meaning he has to raise vast amounts of money in the next couple of months. Winning the race is a long shot even with a well-run campaign. The bettors at Polymarket already have the odds at 87 percent that the Democrat will prevail. Besides money, Hull needs to have Haaland put her foot in her mouth and keep it there for a while. (If conservative Ken Miyagishima manages to make the ballot, it will only worsen Republican Guv prospects this fall.)

The races for Secretary of State, State Treasurer, State Auditor and Attorney General are noncompetitive. The Democrats stand to easily take them with campaigns that will barely register. 

The race for state land commissioner. This offers a ray of hope to the GOP with Michael Perry of Roswell carrying their banner but Juan Sanchez--aka--Juan De Jesus Sanchez III--is strengthened by his primary win, his ethnicity and the unpopularity of Trump. Perry has his hands full.

All 70 state House seats are on the ballot. The primary election took out incumbent Marian Matthews in ABQ but there is very little action to look forward to. "There are maybe two or three seats that will be up in the air," opines longtime Dem analyst Sisto Abeyta.  

Despite the lack of competition, for some reason when we do our November Election Night broadcast we think both sides will be able to talk for hours about why there is so little to talk about. (We're counting on that.) 

THE TURNOUT 

Primary turnout was solid and helped by the inclusion of independent voters who for the first time were allowed to vote in major party primaries. 

Unofficial results show 218,000 votes were cast in the Democratic governor primary. 

About 38,000 independents voted in the election, with the SOS reporting that 74 percent of them opted to vote in the Dem primary or about 28,000. Without the indys, Dem turnout for governor was about 190,000 compared to the 176,000 Dems who cast ballots in 2018, the last primary with no incumbent. 

GOP turnout hit 120,000, up from the 117,000 who cast ballots in the '18 open gubernatorial primary. The independents added 10,000 to the GOP total so more Republicans actually voted in '18 than '26.

Over 10 percent of the registered independents chose to take part in the primary. That was in line with analyst forecasts. The number is expected to grow in future cycles.

(We assumed for clarity that all the independents who voted made a choice in the governor’s race. But the reality is a small number did not vote in that race.)

MY BOTTOM LINES 

Joe Monahan (Bralley)

Take your pick. For the New Mexican the morning after the primary the headline was "Haaland vs. Hull. For the ABQ Journal it was "Hull vs. Haaland". .  .

Sorry, Sam, but you lost and it's time pay the fiddler. A critic writes: 

What a joke of a campaign run by Bregman. 30 years of all hat, no cattle campaigns by Yosemite Sam. A .300 lifetime batting average might be good for baseball but it’s bad for politics. What A thorough stomping by Deb Haaland. (She won with 72 percent)

Several readers sent us a photo (unverified) that they said pictured Republican governor candidate Duke Rodriguez at the ABQ Sunport preparing to catch a flight to Phoenix the morning after the election. That is where he has a business, another home and where he has voted in recent elections. The Duke took a lot of heat for being a carpetbagger, so much that he came in third in the GOP Guv contest. All we can say is Vaya con Dios, Duke. It was fun while it lasted.

This is the Home of New Mexico Politics.