State battles are scarce, but five stand out
This is more than a holiday. By traditional standards — not that anything is traditional in tumultuous 2020 — the homestretch of the campaign season starts on Labor Day.
The unexpected has become the norm in national politics.
A year ago, who would have thought President Donald Trump would be feuding with Fox News? How many people believed Joe Biden would be the Democratic presidential nominee, much less that he would be well-positioned to unseat Trump?
Trump is a lock to again lose the national popular vote. Still, the relic known as the Electoral College gives him hope of being a two-term president.
Almost all of New Mexico’s elections lack the suspense of the presidential race. Early voting doesn’t start for a month, but two of the state’s three elections for the U.S. House of Representatives are over already.
Democratic U.S. Rep. Deb Haaland of Albuquerque will be reelected by a margin of at least 40,000 votes. Democrat Teresa Leger Fernandez will win the open seat in Northern New Mexico.
That leaves the 2nd Congressional District, covering the southern half of the state, as New Mexico’s only U.S. House election in which the outcome is in doubt.
Freshman Democratic U.S. Rep. Xochitl Torres Small of Las Cruces won the seat by 2 percentage points in 2018. She faces the same Republican opponent this time, Yvette Herrell of Alamogordo.
Voters in the 2nd District favored Trump by 10 percentage points in 2016, though he lost New Mexico. Herrell’s strategy is to stick with Trump and hope he is still a popular choice across Southern New Mexico.
Four state legislative races have the best story lines.
House District 20 in Albuquerque seemed like a safe Republican seat until Democrat Abbas Akhil won it by a narrow margin in 2018. Akhil, 72, the first Muslim to serve in the New Mexico Legislature, didn’t run for reelection.
In his stead, Democrats have nominated Meredith Dixon. She was a field representative for U.S. Sen. Tom Udall. Dixon promises a bipartisan approach. She says she can work with the rival party, as she’s married to a Republican.
Her opponent, Republican Michael Hendricks, ran a shoestring campaign for state attorney general in 2018.
Hendricks displayed rare independence when he called on then-state Rep. Monica Youngblood, R-Albuquerque, to resign from office after her arrest on suspicion of aggravated drunken driving. A judge convicted Youngblood, and voters ousted her.
House District 15, in Albuquerque’s Northeast Heights, is another seat Republicans controlled before losing it in 2018.
Democrat Day Hochman-Vigil, a lawyer, ran a relentless campaign to defeat a much better-known politician, Republican Brad Winter.
This time, Republicans have nominated business owner Ali Ennenga. To pull the upset, she has to hope Trump drives turnout.
Far-flung Senate District 30 has already been a battleground this year.
Pam Cordova defeated twoterm Sen. Clemente Sanchez in the Democratic primary.
Liberal Democrats mobilized to help Cordova, a retired teacher from Belen. They said Sanchez, a banker from Grants, too often supported Republican causes.
A high-profile example was Sanchez voting with Republicans and other conservative Democrats to keep a 1969 anti-abortion law on the books.
Six of the eight Democratic senators who favored the old abortion law will not return to office next year. Like Sanchez, most of them lost in the primary election.
Republicans hope infighting by Democratic factions will help elect their candidate, Joshua Sanchez of Bosque.
District 30 is one of the toughest places to run a campaign. It reaches from New Mexico’s border with Arizona to Valencia County.
Joshua Sanchez, a business owner, hopes he has a universal message. He ran on a platform of creating jobs to win a Republican primary.
Cordova is the favorite, but her chances diminish if she can’t persuade Clemente Sanchez’s base to get behind her.
The best shot Republicans have to pick up a Senate seat is in District 9, which includes parts of Sandoval and Bernalillo counties.
The incumbent, Democrat John Sapien, didn’t seek reelection. He held the seat for 12 years, always surviving tight races.
Brenda McKenna of Corrales is the Democratic candidate this time. She’s a field representative for Congresswoman Haaland.
Republicans have nominated John Clark of Placitas. He owns a window business, JC Blinds.
Sapien credited independents for enabling him to hang on to the seat. Without an incumbent, Senate District 9 tips toward Republican Clark.
Labor Day is the beginning of the last sprint for perhaps 20 politicians in the state. For all the rest, the November election is a summer breeze.