Governor candidates in final push
Lujan Grisham drives on, isn’t taking lead for granted
Michelle Lujan Grisham had a dirty little secret. “Don’t look; I do not have a cookie,” she said, biting off half a macaron in one of the rare spare moments of the gubernatorial hopeful’s pre-Election Day blitz.
And it was indeed a spare moment. Exactly half the cookie — and off again. “We’re so, so late,” a campaign aide grumbled.
Not a lot of breathing room for the woman who could be poised to win the New Mexico governor’s office.
The Democratic nominee, maintaining a healthy lead in the polls all through the general election season, was still pounding pavement, pausing only for quick selfies and an even quicker interview, moving with her trademark frenetic energy from one campaign event to the next, as has been the case for almost two years.
On Monday: A stop in Las Cruces, a quick flight with U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich to Santa Fe, where the two Democrats took in a muted early childhood education event at the community college, and then on to a boisterous rally in south Albuquerque, the capstone of a several-day tour through the state, where optimism bubbled over into confidence.
“I think she’s got it,” said Albuquerque retiree Karen Dunning.
The stout-heartedness wasn’t unanimous. Visions of the most recent presidential election ring in the heads of some.
“I can’t even look at the polls,” said environmental educator Maya Higgins. “You never know. I think you should operate under the assumption you don’t have it.”
“Do not let complacency win,” said House Speaker Brian Egolf, D-Santa Fe. “This election is not over.”
Surrounded by parents, educators and pre-K students at Santa Fe Community College, Lujan Grisham was in her element, eye to eye with the embodiment of one of her central campaign messages: A better investment in children makes a better state. The Santa Fe parents told her as much.
The response was classic campaigntrail Lujan Grisham. New Mexico is behind neighboring states, she said, cycling through optimistic calls to action, promising that “evidencebased programs” are the path forward, more money for early childhood being one.
“Seven-to-one return on investment, right?” she said. “Even if that wasn’t the case — and it is — it’s the right thing to do for New Mexico families.”
Lujan Grisham has routed her Republican rival, U.S. Rep. Steve Pearce of Hobbs, in fundraising. Early vote totals suggest an unusually large turnout is within the realm of possibility — and Democratic enthusiasm nationwide has helped drive the 2018 campaign narrative.
It was evident in Albuquerque, where hundreds rallied at the Alamosa Community Center for Lujan Grisham and Democrats up and down the ticket. The gubernatorial contest, in which Lujan Grisham is bidding to replace term-limited Republican Susana Martinez, was foremost in the minds of many. One man held aloft a homemade sign: “Adios Susana y Steve.”
Heinrich summarized the angst of the crowd: For the past eight years, he said, “we see a governor’s office that has shown a certain disinterest in governing.”
Lujan Grisham, an Albuquerque congresswoman, isn’t taking the result Tuesday for granted. But, in the hours before voters headed to the polls, she sounded at peace with the campaign she’s run.
“We did everything we knew we were gonna do,” she said in a brief interview. “We visited every community. Every county. We showed New Mexicans we have an idea. We demonstrated to voters that we have the details. And we ran on something — not just against something else.” So no anxiety? “You know what, I am too busy to be anxious,” she said. But Lujan Grisham did add: “It’s always nervewracking going into the final day. I don’t know any candidates who don’t worry: ‘Did I do everything I could’ve done? Is there anything else?’ So I do that too.”
She mentioned she has observed a transformation in the state since she launched her campaign in the wake of the 2016 presidential contest.
“It was a sadness,” she said. “So apathetic. And that’s shifted.”
From the stage in Albuquerque, before hundreds of adoring supporters, the congresswoman who might be governor-elect in 24 hours did not soak it in. She was in characteristically high-octane form, rattling off the campaign-trail anecdotes and exhortations to volunteer and to vote.
Dancing into the night, she framed the next days’ potentially transformative contest in blunt terms: “We’re feeling pretty darn good!”