Herrera concerned about election in Doña Ana County

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County official says his office is handling the flood of absentee ballot requests and will be fine on Tuesday The secretary of state says she’s concerned that the election may not run smoothly in Doña Ana County on Tuesday unless more help is brought in, but the man in charge of the county’s election says things are going well and will be fine on Election Day. Mary Herrera said in an interview that her office has received a large volume of complaints this week from people having problems in Doña Ana County, primarily with absentee voting. Herrera said the county’s acting elections supervisor, Mario Jimenez, and his staff are doing an excellent job, she believes they are stretched to thin. “I don’t think they have enough people, and it’s just not fair to the voters,” Herrera said on Thursday. Jimenez took issue with Herrera’s assessment of the situation. Continue Reading

Giuliani, Gen. Clark to campaign in southern NM

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Two former presidential hopefuls will campaign for current candidates for the nation’s top job this weekend in southern New Mexico. Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani will be in Mesilla on Saturday evening for a rally in support of John McCain. And retired Gen. Wesley Clark will hold town-hall meetings in Roswell and Las Cruces on Sunday on behalf of Barack Obama. The rallies are the latest in a string of campaign events during the last three weekends of the election that reveal the presidential campaigns’ focus on southern New Mexico. Two weekends ago, Joe Biden was in Mesilla and Sarah Palin was in Roswell. Continue Reading

Obama, Udall have big leads in new NM poll

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The newest poll has Barack Obama leading John McCain by 10 percentage points in New Mexico. It’s a Rasmussen Reports poll released Wednesday that has Obama ahead 54 percent to 44 percent. The survey of 500 likely voters was conducted Tuesday and has a margin of error of 4.5 percentage points. Rasmussen Reports’ newest poll also has Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Tom Udall leading Republican Steve Pearce by 15 points, 56 percent to 41 percent. The poll has the same sample size and margin of error as the presidential poll. Continue Reading

New Udall TV ad makes his closing argument

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Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Tom Udall’s “closing argument” is an ad that highlights what a news release from his campaign calls “his record of doing what’s right for New Mexico.” Here’s the ad, which was unveiled today: “For our state and country, this election matters more than most. Tom Udall is determined to do what’s right for New Mexico,” the ad’s narrator states. “As New Mexico’s attorney general, Tom Udall passed a landmark DWI law with a lower blood-alcohol limit. In Congress, he helped pass the new G.I. bill. And in the Senate, Tom Udall will fight to make the economy work for the middle-class again. Continue Reading

Romney to campaign for McCain in ABQ, Farmington

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Former GOP presidential candidate and Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney will be in Farmington and Albuquerque on Saturday to hold rallies in support of John McCain. Romney’s New Mexico trip begins with a 9 a.m. rally in Farmington. It will be held at the Farmington Museum, 3041 E. Main Street. The Albuquerque rally for Romney begins at 12:30 p.m. It will be held at the Albuquerque Hilton, 1901 University Boulevard. To RSVP, contact Kelly Rzendzian at krzendzian@mccain08hq.com or (505) 715-4311. Continue Reading

Tired of waiting for your absentee ballot? Vote early

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Wondering why you haven’t received the absentee ballot you requested? If you’re starting to get worried, you can go to any early voting site in the state before early voting ends on Saturday and vote that way instead. There’s been an unexpectedly long lag in people receiving absentee ballots because of the huge number of requests from people wanting to vote absentee. I know several people who are still waiting, and some have already taken advantage of Wednesday’s instruction from the secretary of the state to county clerks to let them vote early instead. All you have to do is sign an affidavit at an early voting site saying you haven’t received your absentee ballot and fill out an application for a new one. Continue Reading

Many GOP operatives fear an Election Day bloodbath

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Ask Republican candidates for office what they think of their chances on Tuesday, and even many of those who have no shot at winning — if you believe the polls — are expressing optimism. Ask GOP operatives what they expect on Election Day, and promise them anonymity in exchange for their answers, and you get a much different response. Political operatives and analysts have suspected throughout this election cycle that the Republican Party would lose ground as a result of Tuesday’s election, but, before the nation’s economy tanked in September, a number of GOP operatives in New Mexico remained confident in off-the-record conversations that several of their candidates would win on Nov. 4, including Darren White in the 1st Congressional District race, Minority Whip Leonard Lee Rawson in the state Senate District 37 race, and, to a lesser degree, Ed Tinsley in the 2nd District race and John McCain in the presidential race. At McCain’s Saturday rally in Mesilla and in several conversations since, that sense of optimism was largely gone. Continue Reading

Ad calls Heinrich ‘disgraceful, dishonorable, extreme’

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Republican 1st Congressional District candidate Darren White is out in the final days of the campaign with an ad hammering Democratic opponent Martin Heinrich as an extremist and law-breaker. Heinrich wants White to stop running the ad because, he says, it’s full of “brazen lies.” Here’s the 30-second spot: “Martin Heinrich. He broke the law to hide his past. Like his partnership with Dave Foreman,” the ad’s narrator states. “Convicted of attempting to sabotage a nuclear power plant, (Foreman) is known as the ‘most dangerous environmentalist in America.’” “Heinrich co-founded an extremist group with Foreman. Continue Reading

Tinsley’s new plan: hammer Teague on cable, radio

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GOP candidate still hasn’t made good on his promise to release tax records Last week, Republican 2nd Congressional District candidate Ed Tinsley cancelled his final week of scheduled broadcast TV advertising, an unconventional move in a close race that surprised many. This week, Tinsley unveiled his new media strategy: negative ads on radio and cable television attacking his opponent, Democrat Harry Teague. The sum of the ads: Teague is an inarticulate man who ignores sexual-harassment claims in his companies and doesn’t mind the government taking away your guns. The ads about Teague’s speaking ability and stance on guns are spin — like every other political ad out there — but are based primarily on statements Teague has made. But there are three misleading claims in Tinsley’s new TV and radio ads about the sexual harassment lawsuit against two of Teague’s companies. Continue Reading

PAC with ties to oil and gas plays big in state races

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A political action committee funded almost entirely by companies tied to one family that makes its living in the oil and gas industry is contributing big money to six Republican candidates for state House seats. Much of the focus appears to be in Doña Ana County, where New Mexico Turn Around has contributed $16,000 to the county GOP on top of the $27,840 it has given directly to Kent Evans and the $13,200 it has given to Mike Tellez. Evans is challenging Jeff Steinborn, D-Las Cruces, while Tellez is challenging Andy Nuñez, D-Hatch. Since the PAC gave the money to the county GOP on Aug. 5, the party has given another $7,500 to Tellez and $3,642.25 to Evans. Continue Reading

2nd District hopefuls spar during final debate

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Republican 2nd Congressional District candidate Ed Tinsley wants voters to believe only he has the ability to clearly articulate vision and argue policy on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives. His Democratic opponent, Harry Teague, wants voters to believe he’s just like them and, because of that, is the only candidate who can bring an outsider’s perspective to Washington and help change a broken political system. The candidates’ respective views of the race collided Tuesday in their final showdown before Election Day. The debate in Mesquite was the least controlled of all forums and debates in which the candidates have participated, and they directly engaged each other at several points during the event. For Teague, there’s been quite a shift from the primary, when he tried to divert attention from the reality that he’s not the most articulate candidate to ever run for Congress. Continue Reading

New Luján TV ad talks about middle class

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Democratic 3rd Congressional District candidate Ben Ray Luján is out with a new TV ad in which he takes a play out of the generic Democratic playbook in explaining how he’ll fight for the middle class. Here’s the ad: “We need to start standing up for the middle class. I’ll fight for tax breaks for the middle class and will begin to do it by doing away with the tax breaks that exist for millionaires and big oil companies,” Lujan says in the ad. “This administration has ignored the working people. They’re making their friends rich. Continue Reading

Teague loans his campaign another $500K

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Democratic 2nd Congressional District candidate Harry Teague has loaned his campaign another $500,000, bringing the total he has spent on his race during the primary and general election cycles to almost $1.8 million. Teague’s new campaign loan was disclosed in a filing with the Federal Election Commission that detailed finances from Oct. 1-15. On top of the new loan, Teague raised just under $96,000 during that period and spent $342,000. The most important number: He had just over $400,000 on hand going into the final stretch of the election. Continue Reading

All about allegations of voter fraud and suppression

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In these last, crazy days of the 2008 election, there’s been a lot of back and forth about voter fraud and voter suppression. To this point, I haven’t written about it: Much of it isn’t about current events and should have been brought up months ago if the real goal was to ensure fair elections. But the fighting is escalating, so I wanted to at least provide you with some links to more information. • Click here to read about state Sen. Leonard Lee Rawson, R-Las Cruces, raising concerns about possible voter fraud in his district. The article includes the response of his Democratic opponent, Steve Fischmann. Continue Reading