Republican gubernatorial candidates Allen Weh, left, and Susana Martinez.
Reports from around the state indicate that voter turnout is low today. In Las Cruces, one person reported no line to vote this morning at Camino Real Middle School – one of the busiest polling places in the city – while I saw no lines and no voters at two other polling places.
That’s consistent with what’s happening elsewhere, according to reports from the Secretary of State, several campaigns and from people on Facebook and Twitter.
It’s all anecdotal at this point, but there does appear to be a trend.
How does low turnout affect today’s races?
In the GOP gubernatorial primary, it could help Allen Weh. This is just a guess, but I’m betting that Susana Martinez didn’t lead Weh by 10 points in early and absentee voting, even though that’s about how large her lead has been in recent polls. For a good chunk of this race, Weh had a better ground game than Martinez, though that hasn’t been true at all at the end.
Perhaps low voter turnout will make this a tighter contest between Martinez and Weh.
Regardless, Martinez has opened up her election night event in Las Cruces to the public, while Weh pulled out of the state GOP event in Albuquerque and is instead holding a closed-door event at his campaign headquarters. That should tell you something about what those two candidates are thinking.
One person who was hoping for higher-than-expected turnout was GOP gubernatorial candidate Doug Turner – who has worked hard to try to excite new voters who don’t necessary show up in the polls. Today’s apparently low turnout isn’t good for his longshot bid for the GOP nomination.
In lower-profile races in the Democratic and Republican primaries, it’s difficult to tell how low turnout will affect things. I’ve been asking around today and lots of people are just shrugging their shoulders.
We’ll know in a few hours.