2012 Election Special, Part 2

Women in those districts in particular, but I'm interested in what you just said about the Heinrich race. What do you see women being impactful in women? Well, I think the advertising, some of it was geared toward women. He does take out the trash. He does change the cooler and the air conditioner. He's got his to -do list. His sons are there. Sons are figuring pretty large in this campaign. All the kids are in it. And yeah, the kids are in it and people relate to that. And of course, then there are the national issues about rape and abortion, which are becoming very important to women. I think nationally, the poll data is showing that even for Catholics and others, these are voting issues. Whereas we had thought before that women were kind of insecure about the economy in particular, that's kind of been eclipsed or at least matched. By some of these other issues on a national scale. Martha referenced a couple polls that showed abortion was the runaway number one issue for a lot of women voters, this term, and it's kind of snuck up on everybody. It hasn't been

really talked about, honestly, and except for the most interesting ways about religion tied into that. I don't know that it hasn't been talked about. I think it's actually come out quite a bit lately, especially in the context of the sort of forcible rape and abortion that women's bodies just shut that thing down, which still I'm kind of stunned by. One thing that's happening in New Mexico around women voters and women candidates in particular is that Emerge New Mexico, which is a nonprofit in the state that trains democratic women to run for political office, has 11 candidates running throughout the state this time around. It seems to me that that program has been growing, growing phenomenally successful. They get commitments from women who are interested in running for office and train them, explain to them how the whole process works and gets them going. One of the things that Maureen Sanders, who is the chair of Emerge New Mexico often says is, you have to ask a woman an average of nine times to run,

whereas a man sometimes you don't have to ask at all, he'll just put himself out there, and so Emerge is out there saying, listen, women, we really want you to run, and I think we're seeing the impact of that in the racist throughout the state. And naturally, the Emily's list list is interesting. Hold on there, Senator Boatone, please. There's a relationship between that being front and center and the money, too, because I know when Dede and I ran, in our races, we didn't talk much about abortion, because we figured people already knew where they stood, it wasn't a wedge issue, but you've got a lot of national money, the Supreme Court appointments are huge, and you want to mobilize the base. So you're in local races and you're bringing in the abortion issue in a local race, and it's not, you know, maybe it's for that candidate, but in a bigger sense, we've got the presidential race, and we want to make sure that the base is educated and mobilized, so frankly, that's been one of the huge surprises to me about this election go around. We've front and center prominence of

abortion as a wedge issue. Interesting. Well, and I think Senator Boatone is exactly right. The reason we're talking about this so much is because there have been hundreds of thousands of dollars from liberal interest from out of state that have targeted all of these legislative racism. If the criticism is that we're talking about third graders in New Mexico, and whether or not they, you know, should be socially promoted or not, if you start looking at the coordination of the campaigns on women's issues, what they call women's issues, and then defining it, it's been hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars. Republican candidates have been called extremists, if they are pro -life. They've been called extremist, if they don't support Obamacare. It's been awful. It's been in districts all across the state. It's been in districts that aren't competitive, and it's extremely well coordinated. The fact that we're even talking about it tonight is a result of the amount of money that's come in from out of state on this issue. Interesting. That said, I will point out that the movement, there has been a movement away from successful, national, or federal abortion laws, and towards that fight happening in the states, and what we're seeing is the,

you know, a notification that abortion can cause mental distress in women that there's no research that actually backs that up, but your legislator says, as a doctor, you have to say that to it. I'm not saying that well, but you know, sure. It's all happening in the states right now, and so to the extent that a voter cares about abortion, the state legislature probably should matter, because we have seen so much movement in so many states in that direction, in Utah and North Dakota and South Carolina, all these different places. It's a very coordinated, on a national level. And all these groups are working at the state legislatures. And there's been a huge amount of money spent. Yes, but it's also been spent to attack people like Michael Sanchez, who have stood up for a woman's right to choose in the legislature. And that has been a big issue in that campaign. So this is interesting to me. I appreciate the correction you guys had me on there, because it has been an issue certainly, but I'm curious how, outside of the

outside money, I hear you point on that, the issue has to be there first in order for someone to make an issue it seems to me. So if these issues going on around the country, where people are misspeaking, depending on your point of view, about rape and about abortion, what wasn't that the situation already set up for these groups to come in? None of the level of the legislative races. I mean, this is exactly what we're seeing with these big independent expenditure groups coming in. They're defining the issues, because they're the ones with the most money. That's exactly what Senator Feldman was saying, was it is no longer about the candidate and what they bring to the table. It's about the person that has the most money. So if the left wing, you know, liberal groups want to be talking about women's rights as they pertain to abortion and health care, and then you have conservative groups talking about tax, lower taxes, you know, job growth, that type of thing, you're going to be, that's the message that everybody's going to be discussing. But because they're able to filter through all of the legislative races, it has a statewide effect. We're in the pass, the only statewide campaigns were presidential and Senate. We're going to jump over guys real quick to Matthew Reikbach and who's our other person over there.

Oh, Tom Garrity, good to see you on Senate Districts, 35, 36 and 37 down south in our state. Yeah, we've been talking a lot about Bernalillo County, but let's go down south and see some of the results down there. We're going to see the map when it comes out on your screen as well. I know that Bernalillo County is usually the first one to come with results, so that's why I've been concentrated on that a lot so far. But looking down south, early in absentee, that's a pretty interesting one with Russell Allen. He's a, he's a feeding Senator John Smith who's a big Senate Finance Committee chairman. Yeah, and just seeing, you know, what is happening with the vote right now, you know, obviously a strong Republican response right now down the southern part of the state. It'll be interesting to see how much of an impact, the Heather Wilson Congressman Steve Pierce and Governor Martinez, how they're, you know, swing through the state there and you're that, during that last week is really panned out. And also it's only 33 votes, so we can't get too excited about that right now. This is the one that I've heard the Republicans, Republicans are looting a lot too. Mary Jane

Garcia, the Democrat, looks like she's going down to Lee Carter unless something changes big. Well, again, it's just the early in absentee vote, you know, that's a little bit surprising to me because, you know, typically as a part of, you know, getting your base out, you want to make sure that they're out voting early and early. And see Mary Jane Garcia down by that percentage points with the early in absentee is definitely a surprise. Yeah, she's had some problems. She paid a fine for some campaign finance where she paid her, she wrote checks to herself for cash, which is against the law. She paid the fine, she said, well, I don't want to be seen as a crook, but she's had her fair share of scandals in the past and they may be catching up to her. And then here on Senate District 37, here's some good news for the Democrats. Yeah, most definitely. You know, again, with the early in absentee voting, we're pretty neck and neck, you know, when we're just looking at just a couple hundred votes, separating, you know, William Sals and Kathy Joe Albertson. Yeah, it's an early night so far and so really

can't go too far in projecting anything. Yeah, this is Steve Fishman's old district in case you didn't know. So that's one to watch out for. That could be a pickup for the Republicans, but it looks like right now the early results show, the very early results, as we should say, show the Democrat ahead. And I think we'll toss it back over to Gene now. Thanks, guys. Very interesting stuff there from 3536 in 30. So let's start with 35. John Arthur Smith, a little Twitter would across the table here when we all heard Matthew and Tom give us those results. There's Senator Feldman. What's your first thoughts when you hear it? That was not even on my radar screen. I thought he had it so in the bag and he may still have it. These are only the absentee and early and there are a few number of votes. I think there's 20 votes separating them. So it may be that the folks there vote mostly on election day. I don't really know the patterns in the South. Sure. But isn't that a leaning Republican district historically, the 35? Yes. Well, it's actually 40, 40, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's a 51 % average Republican voting during more than 8 %

Democrats. So definitely a winimble seat for Republicans, but classically has been left kind of off the table because of Senator John Arthur Smith's popularity. So very surprising to see that from, from the result, compare that to what's happening in Berkeley County among close races because, I mean, the offices or the performance within those districts is comparable to Burnley County. So to see the difference in those results is, you shows that we have to wait for every county to start lumping in their votes, that we were just originally talking about Burnley County. Sure, absolutely. Let me go back to Senator Botano and let's go to 36. I'm here in Jane Garcia at 44 % and caught her at 56. Again, early in absentee that makes a difference. You know, our polling was showing that caught her last, last seven days or so that caught her was leading that race. And it may be that he's set up to pull a Lincoln or a Nixon. I mean, you know, this is the third time he's run against Senator Garcia. Yeah. And, you know, for him, third time might be a charm. And of course, you know, Senator Garcia's had some issues and it's been very public. And, you know, frankly, one of the interesting things about the

South is the high percentage of independent voters. So 26, 27 as much as 28 % independence, independence, good government, their fiscal conservatives, social moderates. And, you know, if they feel that a legislator is misusing their position, that's a big issue with them. So we're going to see a lot of that independent vote impact, I think, in these southern races. Interesting. When I come back to that right now, I'll take a look at Senator District 9. We had talked about that. Safey and Doyle race a little bit earlier, but it's been some updates. You see it there on the map. We talked about that Placidas area, way up the top of the screen. They're the northernmost part of that district. It's a very big, it's just one of those districts and you've got to really work hard. John Safey and the Democrat in a 52 % David Doyle at 48. Early in absentee, that's the numbers we were working with previously. And it's just, it's really interesting to me. Again, I want to go back, Ms. Feldman to the idea of Placidas. I used to do some work up in Placidas. It's a very interesting community. It's just different. It's a classic bedroom

community. There's really no, there's some retail up there, but really it's about people, not to be flip about it, showing a lot of retirees up there from another state, bought a nice home, built a nice home. It's a very interesting dynamic up there. You have to look at it precinct by precinct because there's the old village of Placidas. Correct. Hispanic, Las Muertes, Canyon up there. And then there's the new development. And those are trending Republican, although it had been a traditionally democratic area. So, but the Democrats that are up there are very fervent Democrats. Very, very active. We saw them come out in the legislature when there was a local issue that they were interested in. So. So if it's interesting, those numbers, by the way, are barely on Santa Valkyrie combined. So that's interesting when you think about it. Not a huge number certainly coming in, but the spread is certainly interesting. And I just, it's like a dog with a bone for me. I can't help but go back to this phrase. I just find it so fascinating. What would you expect again to be

something that would turn the trick for Mr. Sapien? I just gonna think there's something out there in a message in a district like this that would be impactful for people there. It's a good question. Well, my first thought is, you know, voting has closed. Do you know that there's a little too late for that? It's a little too late for that, you know? Right. I have just sort of been reviewing the endorsements. I know some people love endorsements think that they make a big difference. Some people think, oh, not so much, but I do. I reminded the journal did come out for Doyle. And I think that if you are a voter who has not been paying as much attention you do sort of follow endorsements that might have been kind of meaningful and that district remains to be seen, whether that will make the final difference. Interesting. Let's swing back down south. The guys had clueless in on 35, 36, and 37. We left off 37 at the table here. Senator Botell, let me ask you. The Soles was at 52%. Alberson, Kathy Joe was at 48%. Again, early in absentee, not much to glean from there as we've been saying all night. It's difficult. But is there something there that surprises you? Not really. I

mean, Las Cruz is one of the five major urban areas in the state. I think the trend there is gonna be similar to Bernalillo County. The big difference is when Senator Feldman and I ran, there were eight, nine percent independence. In that particular district, 26 % of the voters, one in four is independent. And what they look for in a candidate is really different. Our internal polling is showing that Alberson is up in that race and expectation is that that's gonna be one of the three seats that we win back. And hopefully, there'll be more than the three. Stay on that district for a little bit. Cruces were obviously student, big student populations a whole lot different than other parts of that district. Makes it tough to campaign in, getting a consistent message that appeals to a lot of different types of folks. You please, with the effort, so far in the, in the, Well, and it looks like both of them had enough money. One raised 50K, another raised about 49 ,000. So, you know, I mean, you should be able to run a pretty good race in the

state senate with $50 ,000. A lot of it has to do with how much money you're paying to consultants. Right. And it's kind of interesting. I mean, two or three thousand a month can go to a consultant. If you're, if you're self -funded and self -organized, it's a little less costly than if you have a bunch of consultants. Let's say that 50 ,000, for a district that big, you should be competitive in your view. Well, I, I mean, you know, that's, that's my sense. And frankly, because that's how it's supposed to be. It's a challenge in this, it's a little low. It's based on, maybe based on Bernalio County. Yeah, so maybe, maybe I'm a little bit attached. That's what you used to spend when we were in, right? Yeah, a little bit more than that. Yeah, interesting. So that's what happened with the change in campaign finance laws. It's like candidates, in, in less, both of them are sitting at $25 ,000. But I mean, most of the races that we were talking about are in the $100 ,000 range just with the campaigns themselves. That's not even counting the independent expenditure that goes into this. Let's come back to that in a little bit. I think it's interesting. This is going to house District 36 and the Nunez seat down south. We've got, yeah, there's a lot of people waiting for some interesting numbers on this one. And there's our state map. We'll hone in just a little bit on that district. You see it down there, 36, wedged

in there. And when you, let me start with you on this one, because the numbers are interesting. As you see, Nunez at 248%, there's early in absentee, Archallel at 41, and a click in Mark Tiles at 37. The Republican, and 37, we've got Terry McMillan, Republican at 49%, very close there with Ferrari, the Democrat at 50 .7. That's, that's interesting. Let me go back to 36, though, the Nunez seat. What jumps out at the Republicans doing quite well so far? Is that an expected number for you? The Republican is doing, no, that's not surprising at all. In this particular race, the Reform New Mexico PAC got a black eye over attacking Nunez. But the truth is, is that Nunez was not ever going to win this race anyways. As an independent and a three -way race, he was never going to be able to be competitive. The question was, how many votes was he taking from the Democrat? And how many was he taking from the Republicans? That's right. So what you're seeing here is, his

result was going to be the same, unfortunately, no matter what, and regardless of any of his positions. I was a little surprised. I wish we could show the result again on there. But yeah, I would have actually, Archallel at a seems to be doing surprisingly well against Teyes, given the fact that Nunez has got 20%. I expect that to close. I really think that Marteyes is going to win this district. And I think that you'll see a difference on election day voters compared to the absentee early. Speaking of Los Cruces, we're going to go down to the Los Cruces son and our reporter, our reporter. He's a reporter on his own. He's not our reporter from the Los Cruces Walt. Managing editor of the Los Cruces son, Walter Rubel. Walt, thank you for joining us. Can you hear me OK? Yeah, I sure can. So you heard about us talking about the Nunez race out there. Let's start there. What can you add from what you're hearing and seeing on the ground there? Well, I agree with what you guys were saying earlier about that. I think Andy got into his

disagreements with Speaker Luhon. And that was sort of what led him to leaving the Democratic party and becoming independent. And that despite the name recognition and the experience and I think he's well liked. But that just makes it an awfully difficult chore when you're running in a three -party race like that. What about that district as well? We had just you probably heard us ask around the table as well. It's a bit different when you're talking about the center of Los Cruces, the student area, a whole lot of other, our types of constituencies as opposed to outside that greater Los Cruces area. How does one be effective campaigning in that district? Well, that district, I think, is mostly hatched. And so that gets to be pretty rural in the northern part of the county up there. I think it leads into Los Cruces a little bit. But certainly the politics up there is a little bit different than what you have here in Los Cruces, that's for sure. And what sense is it different?

Well, it's more conservative. The issues are different. They're more concerned with water rights. They're more concerned with any kind of agricultural regulations. I think that, and of course, you know, hatch was hit, I say, of course, was hit by a big flood four or five years ago, and that's made a big difference in that district as well. A lot of people, they lost their only affordable housing in town, and a lot of those people have left and haven't come back. You're saying a little bit west of you. Let's talk about the John Arthur Smith race, not quite in your backyard, but I'm curious where you're seeing things, because we were just musing here at our surprise at the early and absentee numbers that were coming in. What jumps out at you with that number? Well, I have a surprise as well, and I'm just looking at Donnie at a county's numbers. I haven't seen Loona counties yet. And I suspect

John Arthur will do much better there. You know, WrestleMania is the party chairman for the Republican Party here in Donnie and a county, and is well known, successful businessman owns the theater chain here in town. And so, you know, I, it's not surprising that he would do well here in Donnie and a county, but if that holds up, I would be surprised on that one. You raise, let's jump over there. And it's interesting, we talked about that here in the show a couple of weeks ago. There was some surprise he was doing as well as he was, even given his history there. He's obviously he was formerly the rep down there. What do you think about the Cody race? What's your sense of it? Well, my understanding is that because of redistricting that rate or that district has become much more difficult for not only Nate, but any Democrat. So once again, I think that's, I would suspect that Nate would do better in Donnie and a county,

and Ricky Little probably would do better in Otero County would be my guess. We, our endorsement went to Cody because when, you know, they both held that same seat, and when you look at their records and what they were able to get accomplished, it's not even close, but Rick Little, I think, does have support not necessarily for what he's done, but for what he's tried to prevent, what he's fought against, I think, is probably more where his support is coming from. Last question to you in the overall sense of the area, the districts that you're covering down there. I'm curious how you're seeing performance against Mr. Romney or compared to what's happening with Mr. Pierce down there. How impactful are those races on the local legislative races you're tracking? You know, I'm not sure how much they're impacting the legislative race. I think that the Pierce, although, you know, his opponent who is from Los Cruces is doing fairly well here in the early voting in Donianna County, I don't think many

people really expect that to be a closer competitive race. She just came into it with no name recognition at all and really had it up, he'll climb. So I think that one is sort of a given, and I think the presidential race is sort of a given, and so it's interesting that people really have focused a lot on these local races. The other one you guys haven't brought up, but the Mary Jane Garcia Senate race really sort of took a turn when the Secretary of State ruled against her in a campaign finance violation. And so right now she's losing that race. I don't know if that'll hold, but that's another one that we're watching pretty closely. Actually, I do have one more question. Now you bring that race up. Thank you for Mary Jane Garcia's particularly. I'm really curious what you're hearing on the ground there as well from those troubles, those foibles about, you know, campaign

finance reporting and such like that. Was that a big deal down there for some people or bigger than others, for some others? What was your sense of how that went for folks at hearing about all that? Was she appropriate in her response for people that she'd get passed all this? You know, I think she has a hard core group of supporters who will be behind her no matter what. But I think for a lot of people who really don't start paying a lot of attention until two, three weeks out from the election and that's what all of this was breaking. So I do think that for those people that it has heard her and it has sort of played into this pay -to -play mentality that a lot of people have about our state and our legislature. And I would still be surprised if Lee Kotter, her opponent holds on to win that one. But I think that event will make that race a lot closer than it otherwise would have been. Here are Las Cruces, Sun News. Thanks you for spending some time with us tonight. Okay, you bet. We appreciate it. We've got some new guests here with us. We've got Jamie

Estrada, one of our regulars on the Mexican Focus in Al Park. Yay, he's here with a rock and hair cut. Good to see you. Don't say anything, my wife is watching and she hates this hair cut. We like it, it's a good haircut here. You've been listening, you've been seeing some of your peers come in and out, D .D. Feldman, Mr. Boytono and some other folks. For Democrats and let's start with the Heinrich race. We're gonna back way up and kind of just re -get after this with our new guest here. For Mr. Heinrich, he's doing quite well statewide. I had talked about earlier, he started off with not a lot of rate name recognition statewide and he's pulled off something rather extraordinary so far in a lot of people's view. What's your sense of it? You got to give Martin a ton of credit. Five years ago, this guy was on the Albuquerque City Council took, got into a congressional race against a very popular Heather Wilson. The Domino's then fell with Senator D 'Dominici's retirement. I think did, not just, I mean, you know, part of it was a good win with 2008, with President Obama, but you can't forget, he held his seat in 2010 and the wave back. I mean, and he's been very true to who he is.

He's been very outspoken about what he believes in and he's been very, very aggressive about raising money. And I thought they had a very civil primary with him and the state auditor. And quite frankly, he's made, in five years, he's not made one political mistake and that is very hard to do. And so he deserves all the credit. I think he's gonna cruise to an election today. I think he's gonna be a good fit for New Mexico, sort of in the same mold as Jeff Binghamon, a little younger, ready to go a little bit more. And I think it's gonna be a nice transition. And, you know, just what strikes me is not just what Martin did, but really that Heather never really took off. And he was a very popular incumbent who I think quite frankly, able he represented the first congressional district for 10 years. And I don't know if it was just that she was out for four years or that Martin had done such a good job, but her message never seemed to resonate. And you gotta give

Martin, again, credit, which is he never took his foot off the gas. I mean, he just key kept going. And I really think he won this race more than she lost it. I don't even give you one stumble, possibly. Tacos. The Tacos, but the fighter jets and everything that happened over in the base, like Jamie and on this, we talked about this a lot at the time and it makes you unfocused. So give me your sense there, because we had to just quick talk, because Sophie and I had talked about this a little bit earlier, you might have heard that when Speaker Pelosi assigned him some critical seats that had to do with armed services and making votes on armed services, she was in a sense protecting him or inoculating him or even making him bigger than life in some certain ways with other parts of the state that are more military inclined. Well, in the strategy of this, is that one out for you? Let me say, I mean, clearly the fact that we didn't retain the Tacos and a flying mission for the air guard was, I think, a setback for New Mexico. I'm not sure we can lay it all at the feet of Congressman Heinrich. Okay. I mean, he worked his tail off to keep the

Tacos, to keep a flying mission. He even passed a bill through the House of Representatives so that they could maintain that mission. It was derailed in the United States Senate and as a compromise came, when he was dealing with the Taco issue, he's a six month, eight month freshman member of Congress. I mean, if his seniority was higher than 380 out of 435, it would be a shock. Right. I mean, so I think he did the best that he could and let me contrast that with the fact that in the primary, when you saw Michelle Lujan -Grich running against Eric Diego, I think part of Michelle's success was that for the Democrats at least, they genuinely believed when Michelle said she was going to protect the mission of Kirkland. When she was going to protect San Diego Labs, that resonated. When Senator Griegel talked about it and he talked about his family being out there, it didn't quite ring as true and say what you will about Democrats and we have a good mix at the table. At the end of the day, we

recognize the value of Kirkland Air Force base, San Diego Labs, to the economic vitality of not just this community, but statewide. And Martin protected that. Sure, and it's ironic because, of course, Congresswoman Wilson the time, rode that very same wave that Al Park is talking about to quite a bit of success, Jamie Estrana, in getting Democrat crossover votes at the time what could be considered independent votes. It depends a little bit different now. But something again to the point, we've been talking about this, Whitney threw on in this earlier. What happened here for Congresswoman Wilson statewide because she had made a lot of inroads statewide. Back a couple of cycles ago when she was going for the gusto, so to speak, statewide. Something hasn't quite clicked though. What's going on here? Well, you know, one part of the thinking about the state and the way that getting your message across, right? We're one media market here in Albuquerque. The people in Los Cruces, 12 % of the electorate essentially down there didn't even know who she was. And so that's part of the challenge of, you know, penetrating a new voter base who, you know, at that time in 2008, Steve, you're saying it could be a joke

on. Jump ball, so to speak, if they didn't know, Mr. Heinrich, Congressman Heinrich, like they didn't know Congresswoman Wilson, that would make it seem like a jump ball, so somebody came up right here. Well, I'm sorry, I wouldn't have done it here. Donianna County is becoming increasingly democratic. Okay. So that's an advantage for Heinrich going into it already. So that's, in fact, I'm looking at the, I'm trying to look at the Donianna County numbers coming in and see if it's getting a lot stronger for him. But I think that that's part of the factor. But going back to the Tacos issue, I think that that's one thing that if he does, in fact, when this election become the center, he's going to have to figure out how to, assume a more aggressive, assertive leadership role in protecting our military assets, as well as our Sandia and Los Alamos assets as well. Heather made a big point of that about this, especially in the last three weeks of this election, talking about the potential for job losses if sequestration goes through. That's going to take an aggressive amount of leadership. And he won't be, it looks like, right now, if he does become a senator, he will be in the

majority because it looks like the Senate's going to stay in Democratic hands and Harriet Reed will be the majority leader. But he won't have the seniority in the Senate. So he will be back in that role again. It means that he's going to have to partner with Senator Udall and both of them are going to have to learn how to fight a little bit more for Mexico. Interesting, go ahead. It's really important to remember, this is not a 50 -50 state. Heather Wilson does not walk into this race, going toe -to -toe with any Democrat candidate in order to win for a Republican statewide, they have to vastly overperform the voter registration in this state. Here you go. I got some news from CD -1 speaking of ex, Congresswoman Wilson, Congresswoman Congressman Heinrich. We have someone making a speech as we speak right now as a matter of fact. And there you see why, 59 % Michelle Luhan Grisham winning as expected over Janis Arnold Jones with 41 % of the vote as it's currently stated at 47 and just a little bit of precincts reporting. Whitney, what sticks out to you there again, not a huge surprise. We had two debates with these two women right here where we're sitting. In the studio with Sam Donaldson, Ms. Luhan Grisham

had a lot of things come at her. It was a very tough race. Janis Arnold Jones was really swinging for the fences here because she was behind on money, behind on momentum. What does it mean now? Is this a big enough margin that this looks like possibly yet another safe seat for a Democrat in this CD -1? Oh, I thought you were having fun. I mean, I think it's a very good idea, right? You're going to get your shot, but we're going to have fun. So, I mean, I think we were predicting that this was going to go, the seat was going to go Democrat. I think that was a big, a big surprise to anyone. And I think that to a certain extent, the presence of Janis Arnold Jones was, she was an interesting candidate. She was perhaps, I think, maybe an appropriate candidate for the Abokurki area, but not really getting the kind of support she needed, not getting the funding. She needed all that sort of stuff. You know, I'm reminded as we're talking about the Senate, and now as we're coming back to CD -1,

New Mexicans really do seem to love an incumbent, at least on the national level, and I think when we talk about whoever's going to win the Senate race, needing to fight for the state, needing to fight for this area, they're going to be doing it for a long time. I sense that that will be true for Michelle Luhangression as well, when she, I do anticipate that she'll win the seat, and that she will be there for the long haul. It's one of the things that I reflected on when Heather Wilson was representative in this seat. And we've touched on it. Here is the number of Democrats who would vote across the ballot for Heather Wilson. And I think in some ways it was a vote for the seniority that New Mexico really needs because we have so little representation in the House. And is a team effort at the end of the day? Oh, absolutely. They work together. You know, a delegation front. Now, we got some numbers coming in from CD2. No great surprise to anyone. I'm sure we just talked about expected wins for CD1, but CD2 is expected for Mr. Pierce. It's just a question of how much and who decides they want to concede or claim victory there. We're looking at a more waiting for a map. But

that's okay. We'll have those numbers here in a quick second. We'll just keep talking. Oh, there we go. And that is a 58 to 42 spread there. And that's with 24, almost 25 % of the votes coming in. And Senator Park, you know, it's interesting. We had Ms. Erhardt up here for an interview. She was not fooling my sense of it neither herself nor anybody else. It was going to be a tough go. She knew it. She was going to give it a good go. But what's your sense of where Steve Pierce is now? Is this once again just his seat for the keeping forever now as long as he wants it with a win like this? Absolutely. And it wasn't even whether it was a win like this. I mean, any Republican's going to win the seat. The outlier, the anomaly was the Harry Teeck factor. I mean, that's just not going to change. You're not going to have that many people who would sell finance like that. It's just never going to happen again. I mean, the second congressional district is the Republican seat in Congress. The third, the north is the Democratic seat. And the first is the jump ball seat. What's interesting though is when you talk about it and you

talk about the income and see what I was struck was you guys were talking about it and made it seem like, well, this is going to be a permanently democratic seat and Michelle's clearly putting up huge numbers. Let's not forget that four years ago, Republicans held the first congressional district for 40 years consecutively for 40 years. So this is not, you know, it's like 62 or something. Right, the last Democrat to hold it was Tom Morris when there was only two congressional districts. So I mean, so I think you're going to see the first congressional district continue to be a swing seat. Michelle's done a great job. Congratulations to her. I mean, again, think about it. Let me ask you a question. What do you see in her? Because sometimes when people are early in the game, it's their first run at national office, but there's a little something there that people see about potential because they don't have a record yet. What is it about her that you see that has a potential? I'll tell you what I think people like about Michelle. And this is frankly what I really like about Michelle. Michelle's a spark plug. She's a pit bull. She's going to go to Congress. I mean, she's all a four foot nothing. I mean, she's tough as nails, smart as a whip,

not afraid of hard work. She's going to go up to Congress and she's so tenacious that they can tell her no hundred times and she's going to come back 101. It does not matter. She's going to fight tooth and nail for this congressional district. She's going to be in the same mold that you saw when we had Steve Schiff, Manuel Luhon, Heather Wilson and Martin Heinrich fighting for the first congressional district. Sure. And frankly, I think that's why she's going to be returned. You know, and I mean, she's just and that's the way she was when she was a cabinet secretary for both Democrats and Republicans. And that's the way she's been. I mean, you know, when you meet Michelle, what you see is what you get. I mean, just plain and simple. You know, people love it. It's true what you see is what you get. Sure. And I mean, and at least for two years it's going to be the case. Well, and she is who she is. And the Michelle that I've known since when I started the legislature today is the same exact Michelle that's running for Congress. Interesting. And you're going to see that. I think people as as she gets elected and she continues to do it. I think

people are going to fall more in love with Michelle as time goes on. Let's go up to Joey Peters, the Santa Fe reporter. We have on the phone. Joey, can you hear me? Welcome back when you get some technical issues squared away there. We couldn't quite hear him, but that's okay. That's quite all right. We're going to talk about that hall versus Richard race up in Los Alamos at House District 43. It's going to be interesting. Let me get Dan Foley is back. Our colleague from the line and a Mexico in focus back and ready after getting a half as I saw my cut man. I was in the corner with my cut man. I'm ready to go. Got his eyes on his hurts. Everything's okay. Michelle Lujan Grisham has wrapped up that race for CD one of your thoughts. I'm not holding out hope. I think Dan is going to make a run here late. It's still I got a son of I can't believe that Al Park made a comment about height. Like he's six nine or something to the legislature. This is insane. This is the second shortest guy in the legislature next to me making comments. I think my son and the football people have something to say to Uncle Al about the short comment. Very cute. No, you know, I worked with Michelle when I was in the legislature. She's very charismatic. You know, she had a unique ability when she was in the

legislature to come to my office when I was the whip. Listen to me. Act like she cared and still go do what she wanted to do and make me feel good about it. So, you know, I think I think that she she did a very she does a very good. She's got high likeables. Sure. You know, she did a great job in the county commission of not getting in any trouble at all. That's a huge problem. I mean, once you get a voting record, there's a fairly controversial range as well. That's right. Huge issues came up. And she was able to dodge a lot of that stuff. I think, you know, so I think she clearly has the ability of the staying power. Sure. To me, out of all of this, the biggest test was her time in the county commission like you talked about to dodge those bullets and shows that she's ready to play play ball with the big boys. Also, I thought that when she and girls, by the way, I think that when she when she took on Eric Diego, those ads really separated herself from others. I think she, that was her coming out party. I forgot about those. That's interesting. Laura Sanchez is back. Laura, your thoughts quickly when I get back to Joy Peters is in a fair report here in a quick sum, but quick thought of Michelle

Buchan. Yeah, I mean, I agree with what's been said about her. She, I think the, every time I think of Michelle, I think of scrappy. She scrappy, you know, she really is a go -getter. And I'm also getting reports from the Democratic Party victory party and she did her speech. And she was very classy about it. She's a very classy person, very gracious, and gave props to Jenna. So I'm a very good race one run also. So I think that's very much Michelle. There you go. Joy Peters from Santa Fe Reporter, can you hear me? Hey, yeah, I can hear you. Thank you very much. Hello. I can hear you, can you hear me? Yeah, yeah. Question for you, we're interested down here in that house district race 43 hall versus Richard. What's your early take on what's going on there? You know, I haven't seen any results come in on that yet. Pretty much I'm here at Ben Ray Lohan, election party, and mostly people are paying attention to the MSNBC cats here. And, you know, hollering big whenever a Democrat comes winning or whatever Obama's is going to lead in a state. I haven't heard anything on the house race.

Not yet, at least. A couple little bit and just talk about it in the overall. What makes that race so interesting and so difficult? It has leaned one way for quite a bit there. And what's your sense of the chances for both of them? Give us a sense of where they're coming from. Yeah, well, I think that's one race up here, though. That's the one district that goes Republican in a huge Democratic, you know, Northern New Mexico is largely Democratic. That's the one district Los Alamos County that is often Republican. And I know that Stephanie Garcia retired in 2010 came very close in a race. Some people attribute that to a opponent not running it as good of a campaign. But I think she's got quite a bit of money. I think $80 ,000 and that's more than Jim Hall. I think Jim Hall was at 60 less time at check. So you got quite a lot of money. She had huge endorsements. She had people like Joe Wilson and Valerie playing doing door knocking for her.

I think her chances are probably as good as any Democrat in that district. But from what I'm hearing, Jim Hall still has the edge. I did see some early voting on that. And Jim Hall was slightly ahead in that. It just I think it was about $3 ,000 to $2 ,000 vote somewhere on that. We've got to get to what you're in the middle of the Ben Ray -Luhan party, of course. And it's a big national race, certainly. Not a difficult race for Ben Ray. But again, I want to ask you an overall question. Where do you see him in his arc of growth? Where has Ben Ray -Luhan now? What kind of representative is he? What do you think he's going to go now that he's starting to get just a touch more seniority now? A little next step going in there. What's your sense of him? Well, I think he's going to be important, at least for Democrats in the future, especially with Jeff Bingham and someone with seniority like that, stepping down. And now, Ben Ray -Luhan, presumably, about to answer his third term.

And he's going to be, you know, compared to Congress. I was starting to get serious here in here. Wasn't Obama just one in a minute, so I'll take it. But I think Ben Ray is going to be important for the Democratic party because he's going to all of a sudden, he's going to have some of the most seniority here. And it seems like each election gets easier and easier for him, each real election here in the CD2. I noticed on your MSNBC feed what they just called for Mr. Obama. He won the state of Minnesota. Interesting. My understanding is they've called some networks of Cold Wisconsin for him as well. Yeah, Wisconsin's been called. Yeah, interesting. Matthew Wrightback over at our desk has a question for you. No, I'm sorry. No, Matthews. Matthew is busy. That's OK. We're going to stay

right here. That's my fault. Nobody else is quite right. The district itself. Is there something going on in that district that you're some trending going on that's either going to help Ben Ray's keep that seat forever if he wants it or, in fact, is there a bill Redmond surprise coming down the road at some point a Republican can possibly sneak one out there at some point? I don't think anytime soon. I know. I mean, the district does include the four corners area, which is fairly fairly conservative. And I think Jeff Ferris expected to pick up his support from there. I really can't see any time soon. The district going Republican is the most Democratic district in the state of it. Yeah, at least not not in a while, at least. Joey Peters, thank you very much. We really appreciate your time. Yeah, thank you. Thank you for having me on. Enjoy the party. Yeah. Clearly. That's right. There you go. Let's go back to city one here. The interesting proposition is landed on our table. I want to start with Senator Park on

this. I wrote, I keep doing that. I'm sorry. I can't sit down. I'm just saying. It's serious. There's just nothing. That's right. What's right? We get promotion. We get promotion. We get beat. We're just down and out. That's the way it works. That's the way it works. My fault. I do that with you. I don't know why that is. But you've thrown something interesting on the table that city one has a lot more import, as they say, than just one person winning another position losing, that overall there's a much bigger fight going on here. What's your sense of that? You know, I think the bigger issue isn't Michelle versus Janice. I actually think the bigger issue is one of the Republican party you're going to do. And you see it not just in CD1, but nationally, which is, are the Republicans going to be the party of moderates? Or are they going to be the party of the Tea Party and the extremists? You just watch Murdoch lose in Indiana. Very conservative state. No Democrat should have won that U .S. Senate seat. You watch Janice Arnold Jones, who, Dan and I both served within the legislature. And I think, can frankly say,

is a very nice lady, was a moderate Republican, who genuinely wanted to do good things for her community. And I think you never saw her get the support of the Republican, you know, the activists, the base. And it makes me wonder if the Republicans aren't going to support all Republicans. And there's going to be this split in the Republican party. That's going to be what's the biggest import from this election. We're going to take a quick jump across our studio here to Tom Garrett. He's got some information about House District 4. Tom? Yeah, absolutely. Thanks a lot, Jane. It turns out, big night for Republicans in the Northwestern part of the state with a class to sewage. Do we have that 65 % of, about 65 % of the vote. So Republicans look like they're going to be able to potentially unseat incumbent be gay. So 65 % of the vote, you said it? That's what we're hearing, yeah. Well, yeah, that would be a gigantic pickup for Republicans because before, you know, Al Park, I was going to

call him Representative Park. Al was talking about how some Republicans on the national level pretty much stubbed their toes in places like Indiana. The gay seat was a seat that before this election, Democrats figured that's something they could just click off. But then the problems that Representative Begay had, there you go. There's the numbers right there, a clotchous chillage. And I can pronounce that name. If I can pronounce Nicolesski, I can pronounce clotchous chillage. She's up 65 % to 35 % in the early at absentee voting. That's really significant and that would be a significant pickup for Republicans because they have no, for Republicans, have no margin for error in the House. They have to be able to hold, serve, throughout the night. In order to have any kind of hope of taking the House for the first time since 1953. And this was something they did not expect to get before this election cycle started. Yeah. So Sharon Kloss' chillage looks like she's going to be able to, at least off to an early

start, looking very favorable, really benefited from the governor and with the candidate Wilson, you know, touring around during that last week. So, you know, definitely a big push really did see those early numbers out. Yeah. That's a big early number, four clotchous chillage. But politics in New Mexico are complicated. And on Native American territory, they're even more complicated. So we still have a lot of votes to count there. Thanks, Rob Nicolesski and Tom Garrity. For that, let me start with my man, Dan Foley. I senior you remember two weeks ago in this very table in that very seat, that very person in you predicted this result. I was seeming to result. Well, shocker. I said Sharon to win. I said Mary Jane. I said Sharon Kloss' chillage. I said Sharon Kloss' chillage. She was going to win. I said Mary Jane. So she was going to lose. I said Tim Jane's is going to lose. So, you know, I think it's interesting how this is trending. I think that that has a potential to help Heather Wilson, as time goes on. Some of these seats going the way they are could make this race tighten up. It's interesting to hear my good friend now talk about the makeup of the Republican

Party. I seem to remember the progressive wing of the Democrats getting rid of tons of conservative legislators that were out there. And, you know, I think it's just a cleansing of what happens. I mean, the Republican Party has been conservative. I think that in this election cycle, clearly, you know, you weren't going to outliberal the president. You weren't going to outliberal the Democrats in Congress. You had to go to be more conservative. We'll see how that plays on a national level. At home, you know, the governor has not made any bones about being a conservative. I mean, she's been very solidly on the issues that she's been standing for. And you're seeing this come to fruition with some of these seats that she openly got involved in. Like we talked about before in the show, G. It's been rare. You know, I'll say this, Al knows this. And I used to talk about this all the time. And I was always dumbfounded when we had a candidate run against Park one year, Al. And, you know, US Senator Jeff Biggerman came and went door to door with Al Park. I mean, I'd like to ask anybody the last time a governor went door to door with candidates. And Governor Martinez has been doing that for

a couple of weeks now. So I think this is sort of validating some of the stuff that she's doing. And I think it's validating. And you look at some of these races. Even though some of the deep candidates that have stubbed their toe along the way, I think to see the Republicans be able to seize that. Again, I think it's kudos, you know, having a Native American running for that seat clearly helped. I think it had been someone who wasn't a Native American. I don't think you'd have the same outcome you're having. Laura Sanchez, is that as big of a factor as Dan's making out to be, or are there other things about this race? Is it just totally simple that Mr. Bigger stumbled a bit here? Well, I think there definitely was some negatives for Ray Bigger this time around that that were a stumbling block for him. But, you know, one thing I want to comment that Dan said about this could help Heather Wilson. I think it could have, you know, these particular races could help Heather Wilson. But I think ultimately that entire district, and we talked earlier about Ben Ray and the fact that it was, you know, it was not hard when I suppose some people might say for Ben Ray that particular district, also though, offsets the rest of the state. I mean, the huge turnout, the huge numbers of Democrats in that district. So while it's easy for us to say, well, it's a safe district for Ben Ray. Of course, he was going to win.

Also, there's still a lot of hard work on the ground going on in that district to pull more numbers to offset the Republican votes that come from the southern part of the state. And that happens. And I think they're very focused and systematic in trying to get more of those northern New Mexico votes out. I'm being told by some of our, some of my friends that are at the Democratic or Democratic Victory Party that some of the Martin Heinrich staff are being pushed on stage. So they may be getting close to calling for something maybe happening on the Heinrich. Interesting. Well, I think it would be interesting to look at the northern New Mexico numbers coming in because my understanding was that they were trailing in terms of early vote and absentee votes. So they wasn't the enthusiasm that their ones was to rack up all those early votes to offset the southern part of the state. And I think that speaks to your question earlier about the staying power of Ben Ray Luhon. I think it's telling that you're in a safe seat. You know, Ben Ray Luhon's only going to lose because of Ben Ray Luhon. And yet you go out there and work hard to try to bring those vote numbers. That tends to lend

itself towards should there be a ditch in the, a hitch in the giddy up here. Should a bill Redmond come along? You know, Ben Ray Luhon is building a lot of favor with Martin Heinrich, with presidential candidate, with the president of the United States. And they're not out there stumping in other parts of the country. That's right. I think that really helps lend him the ability where in the house, you know, it's not as much, I mean, seniority is important, but you get someone like Ben Ray Luhon that does the right stuff, is the party guy, works for the president. If President Barack Obama wins, you know, him coming back into Congress and saying, I want Congressman Ben Ray Luhon to have a better seat on a committee, could mean a lot. Sure. You know, when I sat down with him and interviewed him during the campaign, it's interesting to sense from him. I mean, his growth has been palpable. He's just not the same guy we saw in that very first race. Remember, it was sort of awkward, sort of stumbling, and no fault of his was a first time thing. He's really pretty smooth now, and he's got a whole thing going on there. It's interesting. Ben Ray's just phenomenal, and he got to Congress and really wanted to do a great job. I mean, he was very, very

concerned, wanted to focus on legislation and being an excellent legislator. And I think he learned a lot from his dad, and he got there. I mean, I talked to them personally when they were going through the health care bill, and his staff, he's 3 ,000 pages. He's like, I want to read all 3 ,000 pages, the votes in 72 hours. It's impossible to read all 3 ,000 pages, but sure enough, he didn't want to just read the synopsis. He wanted to read what was actually in the bill so that he could debate the merits of it. And what's interesting, so he's become an excellent legislator, but he's also traveling all over the state. There you go. That's the thing. I appreciate that. Starting to interrupt, we're going to take a look at some numbers. It's Senate District 29. We've got coming up here. There's our big state map. This is an interesting one, too. You see it there on the bottom left. Kind of an interesting shape going on there. Jamie, let me start with you on this one. Michael Sanchez at 58%, David Chavez at 42%. And again, this is early and absentee. And you have better numbers than that. You have better numbers than that. I think I might. You have better numbers than that. I think I might. Actually, I might. Well, because my wife is texting me right from Valencia County right now. Trying to tell me

what's going on over there. There you go. Unfortunately, I don't think these numbers are matching up to what you guys got. That's the point. The point is that I think that Michael is winning this thing. Oh, wait, handle it. And I think the reason. And the reason, I think the reason is is you look at the Pertle Jennings race where Pertle is winning pretty handedly. It's from what I'm hearing from down there. And Sanchez winning. Sanchez winning pretty big in Valencia County. The difference is Tim Jennings opponent has no record. Sanchez's opponent has a record. Yeah. So, you know, you look at the Jennings race. It was about Jennings. Right. It was about him. Right. It was about his votes. I think they did a very good job in Rosalind Chavez County about making the race about one thing. And it was his vote on driver's licenses for legal immigrants. Contrast that to Valencia County where they say something about Sanchez. Then they have to defend the voting record of David Chavez. It kind of muddies the water and makes it harder to win those races. Yeah, I would agree with that. Let's hold there for a quick side. Jamie, because we want to take a look at some results going on out there. We want to poke out them one at a time. Let's take a look at some of the races and results that are happening right now.

This is a New Mexico PBS, the election night special. Welcome back. Welcome back to our coverage here on Channel 9 .1 KMD here with Laura Sanchez, Dan Foley, Al Park, and Jamie Estrada. We've been looking at some of the races going on around there. Jamie Estrada, I want to go down south to John Arthur Smith. We had talked about this just before you came in. You probably heard a lot of that conversation when you get your thoughts on this. Are you surprised by that? By the fact that John is just down a little bit. Just down a little bit. Probably not, but that's, you know,

look, I expect John Arthur Smith to pull this off. And I think that Russell Allen was trying to invest some of his own money into this race. I don't think he was raising a lot of this, a lot of money. Remember that Reformed New Mexico now came in for John Arthur Smith. Right. So that was one thing that, that, that, was it early enough? Was it, was it, well, it came in for him during the primary. Right. For the primary. I think that's probably sticking a little bit. Okay. But, you know, there hasn't been a lot of attacks at John Arthur Smith. Like there were at other senators, Democratic senators. But, yeah, I was right. Well, I was going to say this is from this area, yeah. How dare I ask you what it's like in your hometown? I dare you. So, yeah, I mean, and if science can vote, I really think Jen Arthur Smith has definitely been going to pull this one off. Sure. We're going to, we're going to jump to one of the Senate districts now. I'm not quite sure which one we've got coming up, but we've got a 29. We've got some results coming up right now. Sanchez, we've got coming at 58 % and Chava is at 42%. So, back to what we were just talking about there, a little

bit, Jamie. You know, it's interesting, Al, to look at those numbers. You worked with, obviously, with Michael Sanchez a whole bunch. And we've got a little bit less than a minute here before we take a break. Your thoughts on this race so far? I think Michael has going to come out clearly as the winner. He's been a very effective Senate Majority Leader. I think it's been an ugly race. And I think the people of Valencia County have sort of turned their nose to it. There's been, I think, some bad blood between both Senator Sanchez and Representative Chavez for years to come. I think his being returned to the Senate is a, the big loser's the governor. And he's going to be a bolder now to continue his agenda and make sure that he does whatever he wants. To stop whatever agenda she wants. Exactly right. Dan, ten seconds. Are you quick thought on that? Yeah, I, I, I think, I think I was wrong. I think that he, I think he just got a race of his life. I think he's going to, he's going to probably relax a little. If Tim Jennings doesn't come back, I think it really stifles him a little bit. Here you go. We'll be back on this channel in an hour from now with an update on the Mexico races and ballot issues. But we're not stopping. We have a live broadcast on K &MD, broadcast channel nine. That's

channel 204 on Comcast HD package. And channel nine on dish network. They're also, we're also live streaming. Find the link at the Mexico PBS dot org. New Mexico PBS election coverage is presented in part by the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network. And you're in co USA. Welcome back to our new Mexico PBS election headquarters. I'm Jean Grant. The results are coming in fast and furious. We've just been touching on a lot of races going on in progress. A lot of early in absentee voting. Daniel, we've got left off with John Arthur Smith. We're talking about that race a little bit. We'll get to Laura there in a quick second. Just defer to Laura. She's from there. I'll make up for all the times I've cut her off last couple of years. You can't press on tonight. There's not enough time to run. You can't press on tonight. We may work the cutting out. That's right.

No, what I did want to say about that race. And that is my hometown area. So, you know, and if science do vote, I think John Arthur Smith will take this away. I think a lot of people were coming out in support. But I really think that the folks who had gripes against John Arthur Smith, they were trying to fight this in the primary. So, I think that we're not going to see that kind of... That's an interesting distinction. I do think there's a big difference. So, there was a pocket of Democrats trying to figure out how to unseat him. But they're not going to be coming in for the Republican in this race. So, I still think, even though the early votes are favoring Alan a little bit, Smith is going to pull this map. Yeah. And I would tend to agree, Laura. But I would be concerned that he's behind. I mean, I'll bet if you look at the Donna Erwin race, she's not even close to being behind. Sure. And I think that that's troublesome, because I think it's going to lend itself to, you know, that is not a very liberal part of the state down there. And so, you know, being behind an early absentee voting may not bode well for John Arthur Smith. I think what could be happening to John Arthur Smith is just a fatigue factor. You've been there so long, people start saying, you know, we got everything we can get from you. And not that it ever happened to me. But even given

his... I don't think that's great fodder for us at this table. I don't think the average person going to the polls says, I'm voting for Al Park as he's chairman of Judiciary. I'm sure. They vote for Al Park because he's had contact with him. They vote for John Arthur Smith because they know him and like him. They vote against John Arthur Smith in races like this because they know him and don't like him. Right. Got you. Would you agree with that? Yeah. I will just say that if John Arthur loses, it will be a loss for the state of New Mexico. Democrat for Republican, it makes no difference. This is a guy who knows the budget inside out is fiscally responsible. Make sure that the ledger balances out and whether you're a Democrat or Republican. I mean, he's been absolutely fantastic for the economic stability of New Mexico. And for that reason, a low for my book, he deserves to be re -elected. But I understand that he's had some issues. And frankly, he's ruffled some feathers. Sure. But you never doubt where you stand when you're talking to John Arthur Smith. That's right. And you never doubt his commitment to making sure that the checkbook balances at the end of the day. And frankly,

I think John Smith is one of those guys and you see it in increasing partisanship, you see him becoming, I think, more of an endangered species, someone who really is in the middle. Someone who wants to work with both sides to do what's best for the people in New Mexico. That's an interesting point. I want to stick with that for a quick second. But I get another question. When I come back to that, sometimes it happens that there's no air operats that's readily available. Because you don't see the loss coming. There's no one in that committee that you're sort of grooming along the way. Is this one of those cases where who would naturally step in assuming Democrats keep controlling the house? Who would step in to be that person that's so good with numbers instead of him? So I think there's no question that Democrats will remain in the majority in the state Senate. That's not in doubt. I think you'll see a scramble. Though people, Pete Compos, Senator Compos from Las Vegas has put in his time. Senator Tizi Pino has been on the Finance Committee for several years. Does John Arthur Smith jump over and become

President Pro Tem with, or leader with Tim Jennings going out? Channel 7, Channel 7 is reporting that he has 62 % of the vote right now. Whitney just, John Arthur Smith. He just texted me that from the back there. So I think that John Arthur Smith, you know, he's definitely understands the budget constraints of the state. But is it so specialized that no one else can do this? Well, I will tell you this to answer that question. You know, I think, and ask out, too. Anyway, the table, you know, when you're an elected official, you never think you're going to lose. So you're never sitting around grooming the guy to replace you. You think you're going to stick around as long as you want to stick around. I mean, every one of us that lost was a surprise. Sure. None of us went into the race. Okay, maybe I knew somewhere along the line. I was going to lose. But you know, you never go into the race saying, okay, I'm in. I'm the whip. Right. Let me start grooming my heir apparent. Should I get ready to get out? That's not the way it works. Sure. You, someone starts working hard. And someone is, you know, usually working with you. There's a vice chairman on that committee. And usually that person will assume that role. But we've seen before both in the House and the Senate. Vice chairs usually don't rise.

What winds up happening is chairs from other committees, weaker committees, make that lat move or that step up to be chair of the next committee. And I will say, I mean, on the technical issue, whether it's a specialized, I think the issue is really that he's been there for so long and has developed, I think, a good rapport and also a good relationship with the LFC, with the legislative finance committee and the staff there. And I think he understands the process and he, I think it will create a vacuum of sorts in terms of understanding, you know, where all the leverage points are to move the balance things appropriately. That's the one I'm getting at that vacuum there. I think it would be a huge loss for the entire state. Because what he's carved out for himself is literally, Jamie, a trusted voice scenario where people, you know, you can argue on the particulars. I mean, the progressives are going after him. Well, I have that. Exactly right. That's why he had such an aggressive primary challenge coming from somebody from that wing of the party and they could have won that race. I mean, I think for former New Mexico had not come in and defended, John, if they're Smith, we'd be talking about a completely different scenario. Interesting point. Let's take a look at Senate District 15. We've

got some numbers coming in as they will be all night as we stay here on New Mexico PBS. And our Senate Districts 15 is coming up right there. As you can see it. And we've got, it's just so interesting to note how. Just wedged in there. But we talked about this race earlier. Daniel Ivey, so to the Democrat at 52 % now on H. Miss Diane's, 98%. And that does include some election day early results coming in now as closed. I mean, the gap has closed as Daniel just mentioned. So we talked about early voting and absentee Laura on this one earlier. Now we've got some other stuff come some real votes as they say. Real time votes coming in. Again, your sense of things as you see that. Well, I mean, I think we talked about how this is, you know, this is a heights district. There's been some shifting around with redistricting. But ultimately it's still a district that's in the heights. I would expect that there would be some Republican fact. Sure. That gap would narrow somewhat. But it's, I think you still see Daniel Ivey. So at the on top, we didn't quite see how many precincts we're reporting at that point. But I would expect it's going to continue to trend about that much. Daniel, you thought? Yeah. And just remember, this is a, this is

a district that performed at 41 .06 for McCain. 37 .28 for Pierce. You know, it gets higher for Susanna and Diana. Iran. But then you start looking at some of the judge races. Judge races, you know, 50 % 49 overall according to Sandra. If this is a 48 % performing Republican district. I mean, it's an uphill battle anyway. She's, she's on par with performance in that district. I'll bet she she's trending higher than Wilson and Governor Romney in that district. Which I think what that says is if I'm Daniel Ivey Soto and I get elected to this seat and I go too far to the left, I could be gone to the next election cycle. Let's do some district 21 now and take a look at what we've got going in that race. And Lisa Curtis at 43 % mark Morris at 57%. I'm not sure if that's all just early in absentee or if you've got some early, you know, precincts and we have election day stuff do coming in. And is that a limit? Let me ask, let me ask Elba about that. Are you surprised? Because Miss Curtis, she's a good, she's aggressive. She's spending a lot of her

own dough. She's a highly accomplished woman in her legal career. You might know her from that. I'm not sure. But it's interesting, isn't it? Yeah. It's not a surprise to me. Senator Curtis came in in the beginning of January, hit the ground running, did a great job in the state senate, but the numbers are the numbers. She was a Democrat in a Republican district. There was little to no chance she was going to win this race. She worked her heart out. She did everything right and put in all the money. And you can see she's still down by a good 17, 18 % of the vote. I mean, and frankly, quite honestly, she's overperforming. Fair enough. You got to give her some credit. That's what $100 ,000 of take TV test for you. Right? Trust me, I know what $100 ,000 of TV can do to you. Let me ask you this, Jamie, on Elves Point, was there anything she could have done in the money spent in that messaging that could have changed this a little bit for her? Or was it just the numbers of the numbers? The numbers? Yeah, exactly. I see fundamentals. She would have had to spend an enormous amount. The things that you were hearing on radio were these ads by the owner, I think it is, of calipers.

Right. And saying, you know, I'm a Republican and I'm supporting... It's a big gunshot thing. Yeah, exactly. And so there was a lot of this stuff going on and I thought that, you know, that might be the one way to start getting to a more conservative electorate that might be, hey, you know what, I'm confused about where her party identification is. Sure. Come on. I mean, I think the reality is, the numbers are against are all along. You have to go, I mean, I think you have to go back to fundamentals. I personally was surprised that there was that much, that she spent that much on ads. Because for her district, I mean, you're not hitting all of your voters when you're spending that kind of money on TV ads. You're getting your name out and I often wonder why people choose to do that in areas that are not necessarily going to hit all of their voters. If you take that same amount of money and you put it directly into people knocking on doors or into your own, you know, walking the district, I think you get a much better return for that kind of investment and I wouldn't have run ads like she did on TV. Whitney Wade is back with this interesting race this we're talking about. And, you know, somebody mentioned earlier, walk mail walk still is the way to do things in this world. If you're going to have

the money, I appreciate Laura's point right there. But again, to Ells Point, was it just too big an uphill fight for Lisa Curtis when you look at the front of the house? That district was never in play. I mean, she was going to be advertising it was for some other purpose really at that level. What do you think that might have been? That other purpose, possibly a future run at something else. Sure. I have no idea. I can't imagine maybe she wanted to highlight particular issues, but then the advertising didn't really delve into anything that deep. But no, that district could have never been winnable for her. You. I mean, unless something odd. We're going to go to our election desk with some US Senate race numbers coming in with Matthew Reichbach and Rob Nicolesski. Yeah, looks like we got some US Senate numbers. We got Martin Heinrich. Looks like he's doing what a lot of people expected to and he's leading 53 % to 44 % over Heather Wilson. That's pretty much what all the polls suggested. I mean, although Heather came out with a poll last week and made a big deal about it saying that she had a poll showing that it was a tie race, 46 -46. But so far, at 15 % of the precincts reporting looks like Heinrich. Heinrich had a poll in Toronto poll that came out with him up by 10 points. So it

looks like his polls are probably more, a little bit more accurate, at least at this early stage of the race. Yeah, and it all comes down to where those precincts are as well. If it's in San Juan County, then Heather Wilson's in a lot of trouble. If it's in North Central, the Mexico, Heinrich's in a bunch of trouble. Probably from Albuquerque, I'm guessing. Yeah, I think the panel talked about this earlier about this Senate race. And I think that it's a tough nut for a lot of Republicans to crack. But it seems like the numbers are showing that this is an area that's trending more Democrat. You've got more Hispanic voters right now at this point. Governor Romney's looking too good on the national level. And I think that this particular Senate race and also the CD -1 race are difficult for Republicans to crack. Yeah, it looks like everything at this point on the federal level except for CD -2 is difficult for Republicans. If you're looking at CD -1, it looks about as Democratic as CD -2 is Republican, which is not a good

sign for Republicans' hopes of maybe evening it up or taking an extra seat. And there was a lot of... And there was a lot of advertising, a lot of negative advertising on both sides. And I think that there was some third party independent expenditures that worked against Wilson the early going that were very effective. The conservation voters came out and had some negative ads against Wilson. The famous ad with the oil coming out of the water fountain poisoning the kids. And so I think that was able to at least get Heinrich on a bit of an uphill swing that at this point, with 15 % of the vote coming in, it looks like Heather has not been able to overcome that. Yeah, you're talking about the third party expenditures. And when the Republicans are coming in the conservatives with their ads, they kept doing the same thing over and over, and it just seemed like it never worked. They kept attacking Heinrich on the same things. Maybe their internal polls were showing something different than that. Yeah, there was an election day. There was that ad that came out about a month ago with

Pete Domenici supporting Heather and also taking a shot at Heinrich. And I thought maybe that might change the momentum a little bit, but so far with 15 % of the vote, it looks like it hasn't happened. Yeah, still area though, 15%. But I think that maybe on the ads, maybe Tom could talk a little bit more about that, our PR guru here. And we'll throw it back to you now, Jane. Thank you guys. Really appreciate that. And we've got some numbers from Senate District 32. Let's take a look at what's going on there. Tim Jennings behind 46 % is Cliff Pearl coming in at 54%. The Republican challenger there, Daniel Foley is not with us anymore, but he did predict that Mr. Jennings would lose that race. And he did so about three or four weeks ago. But we're joined now by Lieutenant Governor Diane Denish. We're very grateful to have you stop in for a few minutes. Thank you. It's always great when you come in. Nice to be here. Let's back way up and let's talk about some races. Love to get your take on a couple of things. Let's start with Congressman Heinrich and Congressman Wilson. Are you surprised that Mr. Heinrich has been able to hold as well as he has in these

last couple of weeks? And do you anticipate him being victorious tonight? Well, I'll admit I was one of the people who was a little bit nervous when all that money started to pour into New Mexico. And we thought there was a reason for that. But I have not been surprised because Martin has been a great representative for the first CD. And he's been, he's stayed true to himself. He's worked hard during this race, only to be outmatched by Michelle Luhun Grisham, who is the hardest worker on the planet. But he's done a great job. He said we're in a smart campaign. But I will say, I think Heather Wilson ran a smart campaign. She had a pretty strong close, but she just couldn't overcome her negatives that were very high to start with. Sure. And that's hard to do. Let's go to that Jennings -Pertal race speaking of negatives. He had a very, he being Mr. Jennings had a lot of tough stuff come his way. You're no stranger to that. And you're a political career certainly. Was the trick on this really that vote that the commercials kept referring to about child molesters being freed and all this other stuff? Was this something else that

played there in this district that sort of snuck up on him? Well, he's a long -time incumbent, but also the nature of the district. It's southeastern New Mexico. It's got what a 55 % I think performance rate for Republicans. But I do think this is going to be a race where the unintended consequences for the governor are going to really be something. Because he's a very conservative Democrat who voted in a very conservative way. Mr. Jennings, you mean it? They had that coalition with the Republicans. And now the Senate may, the tenor of the Senate may change. Michael Sanchez, it appears, is going to survive the assault. So I think it's going to be a real case study and unintended consequences. Just to make your point on the screen, of course, is that performance amount for that district. As you can see, pretty red across the board there. So that's obviously a point there. It makes you wonder what need for Mr. Jennings holding on as he did for as many as long as he was there. It was almost like a feeling of inevitability if you want to see it that way. With just a certain kind of a candidate in a certain times as a lieutenant governor, as mentioning that something may have tipped there and it looks

like it might have. Yeah, I think the tipping point was somebody actually running against him for real and advertising. I mean, it's a Republican district. It's not really been tested. It just kind of sat there and everybody just sort of said, oh, he's unbeatable. You know, because he's so popular and he's been there for so long. And the truth is, I mean, my opinion is that if we had term limits in the state, we'd all be better off. And I get, you know, it's funny to me that people think that just because individuals have been serving so long that somehow they're entitled to keep their seat, they're not. I mean, he's not a match policy wise for his district. He's lucky to have not been, you know, to have been defeated earlier. But I would still say it's still early, too. I mean, we've got a lot of votes to come in and I wouldn't be, you know, assuming that this is a call for Jennings. Sure. I'm sure you'd agree with that, Al. I wouldn't come in early, sure. And, you know, I'll tell you, what's lost in this whole conversation, I think the Lieutenant Governor referred to it, is the makeup of the state senate is very unique. These guys, and these men and women

aren't just Republicans and Democrats. They pride themselves on being the state senate, being an independent, deliberative body. And you see state senators stand up for one another regardless of political affiliation. Four years ago, Tim Jennings did a robo call on the behalf of the minority whip Lee Rossin against Steve Fishman, his eventual colleague, because he felt that the attack on Senator Rossin was out of bounds. Stuart Engel has likewise supported Senator Jennings. These people are not just colleagues, but they're dear friends, and they work together. And frankly, it's the strength of the senate that they work together across party lines to do what they believe is the best for New Mexico, and that's what really makes them a force to be reckoned with. And I think that what's going to happen is, and you'll see, and I'm glad Dan's not here to argue with me, is because, I mean, really, the attack that you've seen on Senator Sanchez on Senator Jennings and various other senators of both sides of the aisle is really going to be, I think, a coalescing force for the senate. And

they're going to come together, like, never before. And let's be honest. In two years, this governor has not had a lot of success with their legislative agenda. I mean, I chose because the senate's been blocking her every step of the way. So, you know, they're not going to be any less, they're not going to be any more difficult for her with losses in there than they are now. You know what? I think they'll even be more difficult.