2012 Election Special, Part 4

continue working in the national defense sector of, you know, consulting whatever it is. But I am not giving up on this race even though everybody at this table is except for damn fully. You know, I think that there's still a long way to go on the boat count. Sure. No question. We've got some precincts out there, Dan, certainly. People are still voting. Sure, absolutely. People are still voting in Rio Rancho. In Rio Rancho, it's going to be, I think, going to perform better for Heather Wilson than it's for Martin Heinrich. So I mean, but I don't know if we can make up that number. It'd be interesting to see where what is still outstanding. You know, the big winner so far tonight, I think, has to be Governor Martinez. I mean, two of the three Senate Democrat leaders are gone. She beat two of them. She beat Tim Jennings. She beat Mary Helen Garcia. Mary Jane Garcia. Both of them look like they're going to be gone. So, you know, I think that I think the message going forward from here is, you know, what I think is good for Governor Martinez is she didn't play any backroom games. She put her name on everything she mailed. She went out in campaign. She openly took ownership of this stuff. You know, she went seven for eight in the primaries and she supported five Democrats. They won.

You know, now it looks like two of the three leaders in the Democrats in the Senate are going to be gone. And as I've said before in the show and I think Lieutenant Governor, I don't know if she would agree with me or not, the only thing elected officials hate worse than bad press is a well-funded opponent. I mean, you hate that. And if you've got someone like Susanna Martinez raising the money she's raising, keep in mind over the years, what has been a huge escalator besides the voting difference for Democrats has been the national union money that comes to New Mexico, not a penny of it helps Republicans. This election cycle, Susanna Martinez was able to level the playing field. And I think that really puts her in a strong position. I think that folks are going to come back. Sure, Michael Sanchez is going to be emboldened, some might say, by winning. But I think he's also had to work quite a bit. Sure. And I'm not sure that he wants to do that. I also think we're going to take a quick look. You just saw the same time we did. That's why he stopped. Senate nine. We're getting some information from some poll watchers down there, about 150 folks at the Postardale Soul location still in line. But as it stands currently, there you see it, John Sampi and the Democrat at 52 percent

and David Doyle at 48 percent of, I remember this quickly, I see it as early as early an absentee. We may have some actual numbers in there as well from this evening. So let me start with you, irregardless. If things are tightening up a little bit for Mr. Sapien, is that still okay? Is he still, no one, what I mean is, it anticipated to finish tight, you know, I don't think that's surprising. I think that's surprising. I guess this, this number that we just saw is a little bit confusing because we don't know. That would be like 30,000 people voting in that race, I'm not sure that's, yeah, I'm, so let's, I'm sure we'll see an update on that. I, I wanted to throw in here when we talk about the PACs and the money that's coming in, just briefly, Governor Martinez, the PAC that she had, spent 1.4 million last, last month, as of last month, Patriot Majority New Mexico, which is sort of the more progressive union aligned, spent 1.3, it's been a phenomenal amount of money that come out of the PACs, both from the governor and from the other side.

And both sides love to complain about how toxic that is, both sides hate it, and they both do it. Absolutely. Let's take a look, let's go look at some more 5th Senate District 15, Daniel Ivey Soto, we've been tracking all night at 52%, and the incumbent Diane Snyder of the Public and at 42, I'm sorry, 48%, as we see it here, Lieutenant Governor, we talked, spoke a little bit earlier about this particular race in Miss Snyder specifically, but is there something in her district that tells you that this is going to be okay for her by the end of it all, or is this a problem point here, when you have a spread this like this? Well, I think Daniel Ivey Soto is going to be the senator, but this was a resignation from a Democrat, and then a very slim margin, 14 to 13, decided who the Democratic candidate would be. But then Daniel Ivey Soto got out there and worked and walked, and I'm not sure, I would just say I'm not sure that Diane Snyder's heart was in it this time to come back and really work hard to win this race.

That can happen. That's a real thing, isn't it? So even though she was probably the most logical Republican candidate, I think that that was probably a problem in terms of enthusiasm, her own personal enthusiasm to get out there and work hard on this race. Whitney, is this another case of not having up ticket energy, you mentioned earlier if some races, no Romney appearances, no this, you know what I mean? Is this one of those situations, given help? Yeah, a little familiar with the race, and it seems like both candidates did your sort of average job, you know, and maybe they both, you know, say they worked really, really hard. I mean, you didn't have the kind of advertising that you did like in the Sanchez Chavez race. It was more of an average type Senate race, I would call it. Both think that they did a good job. Both probably worked equally as hard. Both had about as much exposure. It's a, you know, it's a pretty, pretty close district and to that spread, if it remains that way, because we don't know how many precincts are reporting, if it remains that way, I would say that that's a result of turnout.

Yeah. And I think it's a little bit because of the minimum wage. This is a very blue collar district that they're running in. And I've been in that district before and it's a blue collar district, so I think the minimum wage vote actually probably helped Daniel obviously. That's an interesting pickup here. I appreciate that. I should let the viewers know and all you guys here at the table that Secretary of State's Office is not updating us or anybody at this point on percentages of precincts. So we're flying just a little bit blind here. So we apologize. Let's go to House District 7 down in Valencia County. Andrew Bararras, they're hanging in there at 50%. Kelly for Hardo. 50%. It's two votes difference. Two votes difference or whatever the case may be, whether we, that's updated or not, we're not sure. Daniel Foley, your sense of this one for the Republican, where's, where's the opportunity as they say? Well, you know, Andrew Bararras, I served with him. He's a great guy, nice guy, but had some serious baggage. I thought that they did a great job of tying him to Governor Richardson. They did a great job of pointing out that they, you know, they claim that he got the sweetheart deal on a lease.

You know, he, he's had some issues in the past. Kelly for Hardo is a rising star on the Republican Party. She attended the Heritage Foundation all five or six of their candidate schools over the course of time. I mean, she's, she's definitely on the rise there. You know, she's, she's outperforming, you know, what she should be doing in that district. I think what's very interesting, as we talked earlier, is if you look at what's going on, take away Michael Sanchez. We talked about this at the table earlier. You got to take Michael Sanchez's way because what you had was two people running with records. And so it kind of muddies the water for the voters, but I think it's interesting. It looks like Valencia County could wind up with Michael Sanchez serving with a bunch of Republicans, or Michael Sanchez and maybe one house, the Vicki Paray is winning pretty big, Alonzo Baldonado is winning big. So I think it's going to be interesting to see how this is going to work out as, as Valencia County. Sure. We've talked about it. It really is sort of ground zero for New Mexico because that, there's a lot of growth happening there. That's going to help persuade, help move some of that vote up into the Albuquerque area. It really speaks, I think, well for Republicans, how Kelly and everybody's doing down there,

right? Sure. Let's flash back to what you saw on your screen a second ago. We've got some results coming in now. Of course, we've had them all night. Alonzo Baldonado, the Republican of 52% in Franco-Tiro, the Democratic 47%, 47% Rob Nicalesky, I'd love to get your thoughts on this one. Yeah, Alonzo Baldonado, I was talking to a Democrat who probably prefers to be a name, but who was saying, telling me yesterday that this might be a race to watch. Baldonado is the incumbent, and this Democratic said Franco-Tiro might give him a run for his money. He seems to be doing that right now, but I think Baldonado might be able to hang on in that district race, but just glancing, since last time I talked to you, glancing at some of the numbers, it's amazing how many races are just right down the middle, 50-50, Kelly for Hardo against Andrew Bararras in District 7. Emily Cain, Chris Alcato, is 51-49, according to the latest numbers. Marcy Blays and Paul Pachico, 50-50 as well.

Terry McMillan and Joanne Ferrari, the last numbers I saw, there was a 23 vote difference there. Conrad James is losing to Elizabeth Thompson, 51-49. There's one, two, three, four, five, six races I count, either 50-50 or 51-49. And we all know what that means, recounts, because if it's within a half percent, we could see a lot of recounts coming here, and we might not know who controls the house for a couple of days, a couple of weeks even. I know which, and that, as I said at the very beginning of our broadcast at 7 o'clock, that does not surprise me in the least. I'll remind you Rob, you said long before 7 o'clock, you said two or three weeks ago, some of these races at least eight or ten of them, we're going to go right down to the point. Yeah, you could cover a blanket over them, and that's the odd thing, we're going to tonight, 36 Democrats, 33 Republicans, one independent. And the range is so vast, where on the Democrat side, if you win the five coin flips, which

essentially, which looks like it's coming down to, you could pick up, you can go from 36 to 41. If you're the Republicans and you win the five coin flips, you could conceivably go from 33 to 38. So the range is remarkable, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if we just don't know by tomorrow morning, who's got control of the house. That's a very good point. Let's take a look at House District 36. From top to bottom, Andy Nunez, the independent, the person that is, you know, when you think about the legislature is so impactful, that independent seat at 22 percent, Phillip Archie, let a 41 percent, the Democrat and Mike Mark Telez, the Republican at 37 percent. Whitney, when I asked you about this the last time we were looking, let's take a look at District 37 as we're seeing it. Terry McMillan, Robert mentioned the Republican at 50 percent, and there's that split again, the Ferrari at eight votes, difference, 50 percent, that's, I mean, that's Lieutenant Governor, we were kind of musing over here, that's within the trigger, so to speak, right?

I can't remember the trigger, half a percent. Is that half a percent is the automatic trigger, so we're seeing a lot of those races that are half a percent, but Dan made the point that Michael was going to be serving. He's already serving with the Bunch of Republicans, Alonso Balvinato and David Chavez. It's not going to be so different from him, but it is a bellweather. It's an interesting, showing an interesting split in the vote down there and who people support if Andrew prevails, you know, it'll be a pick-up for the damage. Are you surprised particularly by Andrew's performance tonight? Is there something you're expecting a little bit better than just kind of hanging in there at 50 percent? I'm not at all surprised, because Kelly is, she's a rising star in the Republican side, and it's redistricting, it has had an impact on a lot of these races, but Andrew didn't have a lot of umph behind him on any particular policy issue, so I don't think I'm not at all surprised, it's a very close race.

Sure, let's take a look at House District 38, that Diane Hamilton, Republican of 49 percent and just as Rob mentioned, there's a closeness here, 22 vote difference with Terry Fortenberry at the Democrat at 50 percent. You know, Whitney, when you think about this and I can't help but think in the echo of what you've been saying all night, is that for Republicans, this late in the game to be hanging in there, anything could happen at this point, are you confident in some of these races? What you're saying? I'm amazed at the difference in the districts, the ones that I would have thought in certain cases would have been safer, and I wonder if Representative Hamilton kind of falls into the mix of Conrad James and Nate Gentry, which maybe we took him for granted a little bit, maybe the Republicans took him for granted. But then again, I would say that by the look of the Clemente Sanchez and Vicki Perez Senate race, I think maybe the Democrats took Clemente Sanchez's race for granted, because I don't think that there was a whole lot of activity in that particular race. So again, I was looking at the returns on the Nunez race, and it looks like the vote count is still fairly low, so I'm guessing there's still quite a bit of votes that are

out, and unfortunately we don't know, because the state hasn't put that up yet, but- Soon, soon, hopefully soon. So for your thoughts, again, on the closeness of all these races, who should be nervous, who should be happy? Okay, so wait. The most exciting thing, if you ask me about close races in New Mexico, is that if there is literally a tie, it is decided by a game of chance. So cutting up cards, dice maybe, flip of a cool ring, I love that, and so I'm really pulling for some of these 50-50s to come down. I'm just going to hold you there again for a second. That's what I want. Lieutenant Governor, go, but I want to get some last words before you get out of here on anything that you're seeing. Are you seeing a trend of something here for Democrats, statewide that feels good in your gut? I think we're solidifying the first CD. The minimum wage vote, I think, is incredible. The election of Michelle Longrisham, the vote for Martin Heinrich. But it just reinforces that money can't buy you love. Some of these races that are changing had no money at all in them.

Some people won, some people lost. New Mexicans like to shuffle the deck. I disagree with Whitney on term limits. These are the term limits. We're happening tonight, and that's what voters do. Interesting. Thank you for coming. You bet. Really appreciate it when you come down and spend some time with us. Yeah. Good to see you. Thank you. We're going to talk about some more, catch up on some more races here in 20. So let's go to 27. And then we'll do 29 after that. We'll see what's going on there. So, Senate District 27, Michael, sent 29 for excuse me, Michael Sanchez, at the number you see there, 55%, David Chavez, at 44%, Dan, your initial thought when you see that number. That's not that big of a surprise. It's really not. I mean, you know, Michael Sanchez has been a longstanding member of that community. So, as David Chavez, they both have a history. I think what this is telling you is that if you're going to take on a big time incumbent, find a young person. I disagreed with Lieutenant Governor when she says Purdles 27 years old, I was 28 when I got elected. Right. You know, I don't think that just because your older makes you smarter, in some cases,

it happens. Some people tell you that I'm going to come, or it's time you've gone on. I think, you know, you asked Lieutenant Governor before she left, what the trends are. Right. I would tell you, it seems, you know, and this is, you know, I'm probably going to hear from my Republican colleagues when I say this. Looks like Republicans nationally aren't liked. We look at the higher office in New Mexico. They're voting for the D's. But then it translates down to the state offices. You look at the way the votes are set up, legislatures, things like that. It's so much closer than everything else is. And I think, you know, it seems to me, again, I'm not just tooting her horn, but I think this is kudos to the governor. I think that the governor's been able to change the message into Mexico for legislative races and people into Mexico are buying that story. They're not buying it for Congress. They're not buying it for the U.S. Senate. They're not buying it for President, but they're buying it for House and Senate races. And I think it just makes this governor stronger going into the next session. Sure. Let's take a look at Senate 35 down in John Arthur Smith's territory, and that is the bump.

I think a lot of folks were anticipating that our friends in Las Cruces told us we were interviewing them as well. There he is at 68 percent in Russell Allen at 31 percent. Al Park is back with us and checking things over on his smartphone, getting the latest word as they say. Still using a blackberry, but that's okay. That's okay. Just my everyone mocks. That's why I'm sure. That's why I'm trading. That's right. That's okay. If you more high billing clients at the law firm, prove your phone. John Arthur Smith looks like he's doing pretty well and not unanticipated certainly, but in the scheme of things we talked earlier about his expertise, the things that are used in his committee, you know, the things he brings to media, in fact, when he explains in a camera his position on things on financial issues. He does it with clarity, he does it with forcefulness, sometimes those things can mean something after a while. So what makes sense there? John Smith is bar none, one of the top five legislators we've gone in the state, regardless of political affiliation.

I think he represents his district very, very well. I think he's reflective of that community, socially tolerant, but very fiscally conservative. And I think he has carved himself out a niche in the state legislature. He's one of those people when John speaks, people listen. And I mean, he's a voice that is trusted with respect to the budget. He's very conservative. He's the first guy that's going to tell you, we've been having tough times. We've got a nice little surplus. Let's hold little something reserved. Let's put something in the bank and make sure that we're not just going out and slow. He almost talks like the Patricia and father of a household, same to the family. Let's slow down on the money. That kind of thing. He's also done a very good job. Also let's talk about, you know, he's, you know, I'll hold you there, because I do want to, the viewers are looking at, the numbers we're looking at here and that's in a district of 36, that marriage ain't going to see a race, we've been talking about 46% for her. She is the incumbent Democrat Lee Carter, 54%. That's a pretty, pretty interesting mix there now as the numbers, as we have them, we have to say again, the Secretary of State's office is not giving us the updated percentages

on precincts. It could be a lot more than that. They can't be, they can't be, that can't be 30% of them precincts reported as a lot of those. That's almost all of them right now. That's right. That's exactly right. I think what John Arthur Smith has also done a very good job of, he has, he's very astute politically. When a lot of people in the Senate were taken on Susanna Martinez, John Arthur Smith hasn't taken her on. As a matter of fact, John Arthur Smith has been in a lot of ribbon cuttings and a lot of bill signings with Susanna Martinez. So you know, where I think the Jennings and the Sanchez is of the world, the Mary Jane Garcia, I mean, remember the whole problem Mary Jane Garcia, she was in favor of a bill and she got invited to a press conference and then spurn it on the governor of the press conference. I'm not for the bill anymore. She changed her mind. She changed her mind at the last minute. I mean, it was a snafu on all levels. But I think that one of the other things that John Arthur Smith has done, you know, he's from down in that area. You know, Susanna Martinez still has very high favorables in Las Cruces, Deming, Lord's Burg area. She's a home girl.

And he hasn't ruffled her feathers. He's done a good job of working with her, of not really going after her in public. And I think that the message that's going to come back that I think a lot of these are going to see is, again, you know, I think the message that's going to come back that I you can still vote the way you want to vote. You can still do the things you want to do. Just don't pick a fight with her. Sure. Sure. Let's check out Senate 37. See what's going on there that you see it as well as us, the Democrat William. I always get his last name pronounced souls, souls. I hear it so many different ways in Kathy Joel Albertson at 48 percent there. Interesting. Whitney, your thoughts there for Kathy Joel Albertson. It's interesting. That's close. We don't, again, we don't know the percentages. We don't know the precincts reporting. A little bit raw for us right here, but your initial thought. I don't know a lot of what went on specifically in that campaign. I think that there was a lot of messaging that went on. You know, I still think that it's going to close a little bit more. Sure. But it probably was not one of the more likely of the Republican pickups. What was that as a performing district? I don't recall at the top of my head.

Well, let me look. Oh, that's interesting. Interesting. What's the old Steve Fishman scene? Yes. You know, Gene, let me disagree with Whitney for just a second. That is by the way, guys. That was with 77 percent reporting. We just found out. So this is one of the seats the Republicans were banking on picking up in the state Senate. I mean, this is a seat that used to be held by Senator Rosson. Senator Fishman held it for one term, one term only. The Republicans were looking to pick up three, four or five seats. They're going to clearly pick up the Mark Moore seat. Did I get the seat wrong? No, no, no. You know more about what the Republicans are doing. I was doing because we hoped we could win the seat, but it was a 50-50 seat and what the voter turnout, I mean, you look at the mid, you look at the McCain's, you look at the pierces. This is a district where a pierce performed at 42.46 percent. I mean, so I'm not sure the Republicans are running out there saying we got this seat in the bag. No, I mean. What I really mean to say is that this is one of the seats that they were counting on to try to increase their numbers and to bring a little more equality into the state

summit. They might have been hopeful in there, but I still think that most of the money that came in and independent expenditures ended up going to try to defend our hold that we already had on our house seats. There was not, I mean, we were trying to make gains and hoping to make gains, but we really had to play defense in the house. Yeah. And frankly, that, we haven't spent enough time talking about it. I mean, the only issue that is in doubt tonight continues to be the state house representative. Sure. So hundreds upon hundreds of thousand dollars packs, you know, Whitney's talked about the finance laws, how that has changed. I mean, still, as we sit here today, right now at almost 11 o'clock at night, we don't know the state voting and re-arranging, but typically by 11 o'clock, you got an idea of whether or not the House of Representatives is going to go Democrat Republican, who the numbers are. And we're, I think we still don't know, good, five, six, seven seats. Sure. Hello, guys. Hold on, guys.

Speaking of which, we're going to go to our election desks across the way there with Rob Nicalesky with a potential D pickup seat in the House, Rob. Yeah, there's, well, right now, it's, it's really very, very close in, in House District 33. We got some new numbers there. And Stephanie Garcia-Richard has a two percentage point lead on James Hall. Right. Hall is the incumbent. He did not win the election two years ago when Jeanette Wallace passed away. He was appointed to that seat. So that is a Republican seat and it's been a Republican seat for a long time. But Jeanette Wallace had a history of being a very independent Republican and Stephanie Garcia-Richard ran against her two years ago and lost by just like a hundred votes. It was very, very close. And right now, it's very, very close as well with, I believe, something like, let's see, about little more than half the precincts reporting. So that might be another one of those races that we were talking about earlier, ring throw a blanket over. And we might be debating about and talking about, well, until tomorrow morning. Yeah.

Yeah, and we're crunching the numbers and also, here's House District 53, here's another one that's really early because we have those long lines and shaperills all day today. So, but this one looks like the incumbent, Ricky Little. He has the edge over Nathan Cote down there, down south. And there were, there were some early talk among Democrats that maybe a little was vulnerable. But I've talked to some other Democrats in the last couple weeks who thought that they thought that little maybe had taken the lead in that one. But I've also heard some talk tonight that they've had some problems, sort of like the Rio Rancho thing here in the Albuquerque area, about long lines and shaperow and some people in Shaperow who were not able to get to vote or ran out of ballots. So that's an unconfirmed report, but apparently that's another race that is probably too close to call, although the incumbent, Ricky Little, has the lead. Yeah, I know there was about a hundred people waiting in line once the polls closed at seven o'clock down there in Shaperow. So that's another one who knows when we'll get all the full results out of there. I think last we saw was about 27% of precincts reporting. So it's kind of hard to draw numbers out of there, but that'll be one that'll keep us

up late tonight. Absolutely. Thanks, guys. I appreciate that for sure. And Dan, it's interesting about that. I had seen some reporting on Twitter early in the day about problems in Shaperow in that area. Seniors are not getting to vote. There's a lot of, a lot of problems. So hopefully we'll get that straight now there. But on this hall, Richard's right, you know, this is interesting here. I appreciate what Rob was saying about this, but it is so close at 49% for hall. It just, you know, what do you think? It's only 54 votes separate the vote. Sure. And so I mean, I wouldn't get too carried away at calling a race separated by 54 votes right now. And I think that those numbers looked kind of light for that. So there could be some more substantial votes out there that we don't know yet. But I just have to keep going back to, I mean, this is a state where D's overwhelmingly out register of Republicans, and yet we're talking about the House's in play. We're talking about pickup in the Senate seats. We're talking about a sitting governor who took on three leaders in the Senate on the Democrat side, one, two of those three races.

So I mean, I think if I was giving my assessment for tonight, you know, I think that Governor Martinez has made a little bit stronger by what's going on here. She made that race about Tim Jennings. That race of Tim Jennings was a single issue race. That race against Tim Jennings was about a vote, a single vote that he made on driver's license for illegal immigrants. So I think that it's, you know, when you come back and you say, when you start pulling those people into that office and you start saying to them, you start doing the bill Richardson, you put your arm around them and say, let me show you how it went. You know, people start having a tendency to say, you start bringing in Mary Jane Garcia's folks and you say, you know, the president won down there, Pierce lost down there and Mary Jane got beat also. I mean, the only R that's going to win in that district is going to be the Senate candidate against Mary Jane. And so, and I'm sure that there'll be all kinds of reasons why Mary Jane shot herself in the foot, but people shoot themselves in the foot every day and they get reelected. So, so analysis ignores the fact that these candidates aren't running in a statewide race.

They're running in districts that are specifically carved out to create competitive races. Mary Jane Garcia's district was created to complete. No, okay. Ray Begay's was made to create a better matter. Matter of fact, they were. That was the court ordered plan. That was Judge Hall's plan. Ray Begay's district went from a 58% Democratic performing district to 52. Mary Jane's went down to a 53. You saw Conrad James go 50, 50, Dave Doyle's 50, 50, 50. That's exactly what the court wanted to do. That's exactly what the GOP wanted to do. So it's not really fair to say that it's an overwhelmingly democratic state and the Democrats and the Republicans are making inroads, the Republicans are making inroads purely because of redistricting, not because of the overall makeup of the state. And I think we disagree on that. You look at all of the seats that are happening right now that would be different if we were talking about one or two people. I think it plays right into what I said earlier. You may have been having a snack, but I said that we're not doing well on the national level. Republicans are not doing well on the national level. Congress, U.S. Senate, President of the United States, we're not doing well. But then you get into these districts and you start looking at seats like legislative

races. I think it's interesting. To me, it plays into that old adage. Everybody hates Congress, but they love their congressmen. And so I think if you're Susanna Martinez, she's not really concerned about how the president does. She's not really concerned about how Luang Risham does. Let me ask one question on this. This is interesting because it sounds like what's forming here potentially is a victory for redistricting, depending on your point of view. If the goal, as Al says, was to be more competitive, isn't this a decent result? We have competitive races going on all over the place. I think undoubtedly. And I think Al made the best assessment of it that now legislators that are in districts that had been safe before were forgiven a lot of either ethical things or maybe policy issues because they were unseedable. So I think it's going to hold all of the legislators in those more competitive districts to a higher standard. But I think what's getting lost in this discussion, a little bit on the political side of it, is back to the policy side of it. And we have to remember that most of the Republican legislative candidates that ran answered that Albuquerque journal questionnaire in support of making sure that our third graders

learned how to read and write before they go to the fourth grade. That's a Susanna Martinez policy. Most almost all of the Republicans supported removing our practice of giving drivers licenses to illegal immigrants. Most of the Democratic candidates wash back and forth on this issue. And then there's a whole issue we haven't been talked about today, which is what we're going to do with our state pension funds. A lot of the questions that the journal has brought up and has been opined about in the editorials are on these issues. And the Democrats have been on one side of this and the Republicans have been on another. And I would tell you that the policies have had effect in these races as well. It's just the past. Sure. Let's start talking some big picture stuff here. I love the way you kick this off because we're down to like five or six or seven minutes in our broadcast. Sophie, let's talk if it's not a victory for redistricting and Dan's making the case that it could be a victory for the governor in her agenda, given what the results are. So we've got Democrats winning all over the place on the top of the ticket. I want to see the numbers. You know, we're sort of comparing apples and oranges here when we talk about how we vote for president, how we vote for Senator House versus how we vote in redistricted communities. Sure.

You know, bottom line, are we seeing this large number of Democrats voting for Democratic legislators, but they're being districted in such a way that their vote is diluted and so it's not. It's not going to stop you there, Sophie, because we have Senator Michael Sanchez is on the phone. Senator, can you hear me? Yeah, I sure can. How are you, Gene? Time on an election night and a busy election night. I have to ask you first, right off, how you feeling about how things are going so far? I feel very good. You know, I haven't got the results on all of the races yet. So we're trying to see how all of our incumbents have done and so we're waiting on those calls, but we really haven't received final word on any of them yet. Race, a lot of things flying around between you and your opponent and your opponent back to you. What's your sense of how, let's cut this a couple of ways. Your opponent had some help, a lot of help and you still are hanging in there. What's your, are you angry at what came at you?

Are you disappointed? What's your sense of how this all went? Well, we just got our final numbers and we have won. All of the numbers are in with the exception of, I think, 379 votes out of the Pueblo of Islam and we feel pretty comfortable with how we think we'll do there. Well, you know, when out of state corporations come in and spend money to beat local candidates, it doesn't feel very good and I don't think it's good for New Mexico or the people of New Mexico. To try to divide communities and to make them fight with one another, that doesn't lead to good decision-making on the part of the policymakers. You know, what I plan to do is move forward like we always have and do what's best for the state of New Mexico and not let these outside corporations with their big money influence the decisions that we make at our local level and at the state level. I just got a little bit of time with you, I have to ask you one last question.

When you're working with the governor's office, setting agendas for the legislature and all the work that has to go into that, what's your attitude going in? Are you inclined to be a little less cooperative on some things, are you inclined to be forgiving about some other things? What's your thought at this point? Well, it's the same philosophy I had when she was elected. We're willing to work if she's willing to work with us. However, we don't know what her agenda has been. I mean, we've been losing jobs. You know, I think we lost 9,000 jobs with this last month. I don't see any plan for the economy, for our businesses in the state of New Mexico. A water plan, I just don't know what her agenda is because it's just been filled with Jay McCluskey wanting certain things done so that he can use them in campaigns. So if she can come up with an agenda, I'm more than happy to sit down and work with her. And I hope she understands that it's working together and compromising to come up with

good sound policy for all of the people of the state of New Mexico, not just a few. Mr. Sanchez, thank you very much, congratulations on your hard fought victory and we'll see you next time. Okay, Jean. And thank you very much for calling. Absolutely. Absolutely. Our pleasure. I'm going to go up here, guys. Just get a little bit to go. Al Parks here, Whitney Wait, one of our old friends is here. What's your name again? I'm kidding. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. And Daniel Holy, Sophie Martin, help us close out this on the big picture. You were starting to do that just before we did that. The bigger picture for Democrats here, statewide. Oh, so what I was just saying is that is that if we tally up the votes for Democratic Legislatures, Republican Legislatures, we're going to see the effects of redistricting and see how that really played out. That's what I'm. So tomorrow, the next day, that's when we'll be able to do that talent. And we're going to have to leave that as the last word. Sophie Martin gets it. See, the person that didn't have a name, she gets the wrap up. Thank you all for being here tonight. It was a great push. Electionites are wonderful.

Thank you, Rob Desk. Rob Nica-Lusky, Matthew Wright-Bocky did a terrific job. We really appreciate your efforts. And we will be summarizing, recapping, parsing, everything you want to know this Friday night in Mexico and focus at seven o'clock. Have a great night. Have a great night. Have a great night. Have a great night. Have a great night. Have a great night. Have a great night. Have a great night. Have a great night. Have a great night. Have a great night. Have a great night. Have a great night. Have a great night. Have a great night. Have a great night. Have a great night. Have a great night. Have a great night. Have a great night. Have a great night. Have a great night. Have a great night. Have a great night. Have a great night. Have a great night. Have a great night. Have a great night. And by...

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