New Mexico polling

[Tommy Duncan]

2000 Election: Gore won by 0.06

Gore 47.9
Bush 47.9
Nader 3.6


online.wsj.com/public/res...print.html (http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/info-battleground04-0907print.html)

Kerry 53.6
Bush 43.9
Nader 1.1


abqjournal.com/elex/21853...-05-04.htm (http://abqjournal.com/elex/218536elex09-05-04.htm)

Bush 45
Kerry 42
Nader 1

[Tommy Duncan]

www.economist.com/researc...id=1527355 (http://www.economist.com/research/articlesBySubject/displayStory.cfm?story_ID=2766298&subjectid=1527355)

Swing states

Not really like anywhere else

Jun 17th 2004 | SANTA FE
The Economist

The seventh in our series on swing states in the upcoming election looks at perhaps the oddest of them all, New Mexico

IN JUST one way, New Mexico is a typical swing state. In 2000, its presidential contest was the closest of all: Al Gore won by 366 votes, or 0.06% of the vote. If there had not been a snowstorm in three mainly Republican counties, George Bush would have won by a corresponding sliver.

In another way, New Mexico can be said to represent America's future. It is the state with the highest proportion of Hispanic people—some 43% of the population. When you factor in Native Americans, it is already a “majority-minority” state. Much of the rest of the country may eventually come to look like it.

Otherwise, New Mexico is not at all typical. It is quite different from California because most of its minorities have been there for ten or 20 generations, rather than one or two. And it is the opposite of Florida, where Democratic-leaning Latino immigrants are offsetting the influence of Republican-leaning whites. In New Mexico, white Republican arrivals are offsetting the influence of indigenous, Democratic-leaning Hispanics. In this sense, New Mexico does not foretell America's future; it reflects a chapter of America's past.

http://www.economist.com/images/20040619/CUS902.gif

Two-thirds of its Spanish-speakers are descended from families who settled in the isolated northern tip of Spain's New World empire before the Pilgrim Fathers arrived on the east coast. Their language sounds like the one Cervantes used. They are citizens, while 60% of California's Hispanics are not. They never use the word Latino—a useful potpourri term for Spanish-speakers coming from all over the American continent. New Mexico's old Hispanic families describe themselves as Spanish.

This makes the battle for their vote different from the campaign in Florida, California or New York. In New Mexico, Spanish-speakers have their own political institutions. They have sent three of their number to the Senate and three to the governor's office, including the current Democrat, Bill Richardson (who has a Mexican mother). And they vote. Elsewhere in America, Hispanic political influence is muted by low turnout. In New Mexico, the participation rate is 40%. This is lower than the white rate, and it is falling, but it is still far greater than anywhere else.

On top of this, almost a tenth of the population is Indian, mostly Navajo, the largest proportion in the country after Alaska. In New Mexico, “minorities” do not merely form a majority, but a settled majority, resident for 400 or 1,000 years. Whites are first- or second-generation newcomers, whether conservative oil men or left-wing environmentalists. New Mexico may vote like the nation. But it does so because of a distinctive demography and culture.

http://www.economist.com/images/20040619/CUS900.gif

New Mexico has a tiny population—smaller than that of Phoenix. Chris Garcia, a professor at the University of New Mexico, breaks the state down into five regions:

• North-central, around Santa Fe, the capital. Mountainous country, dominated by old Spanish families, socially conservative but a Democratic stronghold, largely for historical reasons.

• The north-west. Indian country: mainly rural, but with a few towns like Gallup. Also Democratic, but with a low turnout and only 12% of the population.

• The east side, or “Little Texas”. Oil and ranching land, settled by conservatives from Texas and Oklahoma. A Republican stronghold, but in the past few years this part of the state has taken in a lot of new immigrants from Mexico.

• The south-west. High desert, around Las Cruces. Also fast-growing and attracting new immigrants. A swing area.

• Albuquerque, the largest city with 40% of the population, and the nearest thing to a Sun Belt boom town: high-tech, suburban and evenly divided. Mr Gore won there by 1,500 votes.

These five areas—two Democratic, one Republican, two swing—cancel each other out. The Spanish families and Indians were members of Roosevelt's New Deal coalition and have remained Democrats since; in almost European fashion, they tend to view the government as beneficent. The Anglo newcomers are more dog-eat-dog individualists.


Richardson land

Since it became a state in 1912, New Mexico has always voted for the presidential winner, with two exceptions: Gerald Ford in 1976 and Mr Gore in 2000 (though he did win the popular vote). The trend is slightly towards the Democrats, but not by enough to make John Kerry confident. New Mexico has grown fast, but the growth is concentrated around the Rio Grande valley, mainly boosting two swing regions, Albuquerque and the south-west, thus making the state even harder to read.

Perhaps because New Mexico's Hispanics are so distinctive, there is not much sign that the Republicans' outreach to them is working well. The party has also been stuck in a fratricidal battle between moderates and conservative activists. There have been three state chairmen in just over a year. But the party's biggest problem is the popular Mr Richardson.

During his gubernatorial campaign in 2002, local Democrats registered 30,000 new voters (they already had a 1.6 to 1 registration advantage). They have raised almost twice as much money as Republicans in this election cycle. Mr Richardson, a former energy secretary under Bill Clinton, has cut taxes and started to reform the schools. He hopes his high approval ratings will deliver the state to Mr Kerry. Perhaps he can do this. But if he does, it will have more to do with the peculiarities of New Mexico than with what is happening in the country at large.

[Tommy Duncan]

www.realcities.com/mld/kr...tstory.jsp (http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/9713869.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp)

Sep. 15-16
625 RV
MoE +/-4.0

Bush 47
Kerry 43
Nader 2
Other/Undecided 8

[Nbadan]

Albq Jrnl (http://www.abqjournal.com/elex/235650elex10-06-04.htm)
10/1-10/4
872 Likely Voters
3.0 Margin of error

Bush 43
Kerry 46
Nader 02

In a Mason-Dixson Poll (http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/9713869.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp) taken almost a month ago, and well before the first Presidential debate Bush held a 4 point lead in New Mexico.

[Nbadan]

American Research Group (http://americanresearchgroup.com/nm/)
10/16-10/18
600 LV
4.0 MOE

Bush 46
Kerry 48
Nader 01

---

Mason-Dixon (http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/politics/9977631.htm)
10/15-10/18
625 LV
4.0 MOE

Bush 49
Kerry 44
Nadar 00