As I wrote in a commentary published at NMPolitics.net last Friday, I’ve been working since President Donald Trump’s surprise (to me) victory in 2016 to better understand how systems are impacting people – and how people are responding. That election revealed that journalists need to do a better job of understanding what’s happening on the ground in our communities.
That’s how I knew it was premature for other news organizations to call the race to replace Steve Pearce in the U.S. House for Republican Yvette Herrell last Tuesday evening. I knew the tally at the time didn’t account for the groundswell on the left since Trump’s election that I’d documented in and around Las Cruces. I knew there were thousands of ballots yet to be counted in Doña Ana County that could give the victory to Democrat Xochitl Torres Small.
Heath Haussamen
It’s not always easy to tell other news organizations — from CNN to the Albuquerque Journal — that they’re wrong. But that’s what I did, writing in an article that the race wasn’t over. Last Wednesday, those outstanding Doña Ana County ballots proved me right.
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