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The blueing of New Mexico
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| Contributor | DFWDem |
| Last Edited | DFWDem Nov 03, 2008 04:31pm |
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| Category | Analysis |
| News Date | Monday, November 3, 2008 10:00:00 PM UTC0:0 |
| Description | When Republican Sen. Pete Domenici decided to step down from his New Mexico Senate seat this year, he set in motion a game of musical chairs that will likely lead to a major political transformation in the state he has represented for the past 36 years.
When the music stops on Tuesday, the state’s Republicans may find themselves stuck behind a wall of Democratic chairs, a surprising coda to the Domenici era. New Mexico Republicans hold a 3-2 advantage in the state’s congressional delegation today, but on Tuesday Democrats are poised for a 5-0 sweep despite millions being poured into the state by the National Republican Congressional Committee and the conservative group Freedom’s Watch.
Along the way, the state and its five electoral-college votes are leaning toward Barack Obama after going to George Bush in 2004. An Albuquerque Journal poll released Sunday has Obama leading John McCain 51-43. A month ago, he led 45-40. McCain, who hopes the numbers are wrong, is holding a rally Monday in Roswell.
The primary driver for Democratic success has been a robust registration drive, which has added 110,000 new voters, disproportionately Democratic, to New Mexico rolls. By November 1, nearly 200,000 New Mexicans had voted early, according to a tally being kept by George Mason University Professor Michael McDonald. Fifty-three percent were Democrats, 33 percent Republicans and 14.5 percent independents. Gore won the state by 366 votes in 2000 and Bush took it in 2004 by fewer than 6,000.
“Four to six weeks ago, around when the economy was tanking, most of the Republicans I was speaking with off the record were saying. ‘Yeah, it’s bad…[but] Ed Tinsley has a shot, John McCain has a shot,’” said Heath Haussamen a political observer and nonpartisan blogger in New Mexico.
Not anymore. |
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