Will New Mexico Voters Make The GOP The #3 Party?

How many candidates want to pose for a photo with Trump?

When former New Mexico governor Gary Johnson-- then a Republican, now a Libertarian-- jumped into the state's Senate race last week, Ed Kilgore called him a cranky professional spoiler in New York Magazine. And a "a lovable goofball with serious ideas." Kilgore noted that "It’s unclear what sort of resources Johnson can bring to the race, and what he will choose to say about the current president of the United States, which will help determine which pool of major-party voters he is likely to dip into most effectively. At the time of his interview with Weigel, he was saying Trump’s presidency 'could be the end of the republic as we know it.' It’s also worth knowing that most analyses of the 2016 vote concluded that Johnson drew more voters from Clinton than from Trump (though many Johnson voters would have just stayed home had the Libertarian option not been available to them)."

In 2016, Debbie Wasserman Schultz had fixed it so that Hillary took home 27 New Mexico convention delegates to Bernie's 16, even though the 2 campaigns ran neck-and-neck in the primary, another example of how the Democratic establishment turns off voters. Bernalillo County, setting of Breaking Bad, is, by far the biggest country in the state and includes Albuquerque, the only big city in the state. It was very close but Bernie won it by around a point, a little over 38,000 votes to Hillary's 36,000 votes. Trump won the Republican primary there, but with just over 21,000 votes. Bernie beat the 6 Republican candidates combined!

Martin Heinrich has been a decent U.S. senator. ProgressivePunch rates his record an "A," not as strongly as Tom Udall's, but close enough. He was first elected in 2012, running for an open seat when Jeff Bingaman retired. The GOP put up their strongest candidate, ex-Congresswoman Heather Wilson. Despite being outspent Heinrich beat her 395,717 (51.01%) to 351,295 (45.28%). This cycle Heinrich is going up against Republican Mick Rich, a wealthy contractor. Neither was challenged in their June 5 primaries but Heinrich drew 152,145 votes and Rich drew 67,502 votes. But then the Libertarian candidate dropped out and the party named Johnson as their candidate.

Monday, Emerson released a poll showing that Johnson may wipe out the GOP altogether. Even though Johnson and Rich combined don't do as well as Heinrich, Republicans are split, with 27% voting for Johnson and 25% for Rich. Among Independents, Heinrich polls 32%, Johnson 25%, and Rich just at 7%.


Rich is scratching his head in wonder. "What a crazy, wacky world we live in. [Johnson is] more in sync with Bernie Sanders than he is with Republicans." Maybe the two establishment parties in Washington should spend some time thinking about that.