{"id":146879,"date":"2016-04-26T21:02:37","date_gmt":"2016-04-27T03:02:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=146879"},"modified":"2016-04-27T09:49:09","modified_gmt":"2016-04-27T15:49:09","slug":"clinton-hires-staff-in-nm-ahead-of-states-june-7-primary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2016\/04\/clinton-hires-staff-in-nm-ahead-of-states-june-7-primary\/","title":{"rendered":"Clinton hires staff in NM ahead of state’s June 7 primary"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Hillary<\/a>

Gage Skidmore \/ Creative Commons<\/p>

Hillary Clinton speaking with supporters at a campaign rally in Phoenix on March 21. (photo cc info<\/a>)<\/p><\/div>\n

Hillary Clinton appears to be planning\u00a0to\u00a0aggressively go after New Mexico’s Democratic Party delegates.<\/p>\n

The frontrunner for the Democratic Party’s nomination became the first presidential candidate on Tuesday to announce that her campaign\u00a0was hiring\u00a0staff in New Mexico. Her campaign also said it\u00a0would open offices “throughout the state in the coming weeks.”<\/p>\n

Whether Clinton\u00a0— who won several primaries on Tuesday<\/a> —\u00a0will visit New Mexico before the state’s June 7 primary is unknown.<\/p>\n

The Clinton campaign has hired veteran political consultant Scott Forrester to serve as its campaign director in New Mexico. It also brought on Rich Thuma to serve as organizing director and Victor Reyes to be communications director for New Mexico. A news release announcing the hires stated that the campaign plans to “build a robust team of experienced community organizers who are committed to engaging the\u00a0citizens of New Mexico across the state” in the coming weeks.<\/p>\n

Clinton’s Democratic primary opponent, Bernie Sanders, has no formal campaign presence in New Mexico, but several grassroots group have been organizing in support of him in Las Cruces<\/a> and other areas of the state. Las Cruces For Bernie recently opened its own office<\/a> in the city.<\/p>\n

The only public poll of the Democratic primary, a survey conducted in February for the Albuquerque Journal<\/a>, found Clinton leading with the support of 47 percent of likely Democratic primary voters in the state to Sanders\u2019 33 percent.<\/p>\n

Some 43 delegates<\/a> to the Democratic National Convention are up for grabs in New Mexico. Nine are so-called superdelegates who can support whichever candidate they want\u00a0— five\u00a0have pledged support for Clinton<\/a> — and the other 34 will be awarded proportionately based on the results of the June 7 vote.<\/p>\n

On the Republican side, there’s been no formal activity in New Mexico, but the state has been a focus of the race in recent days because of the fragile alliance<\/a> between Ted Cruz and John Kasich to try to stop Donald Trump. The deal\u00a0had Kasich agreeing to leave the May 3 Indiana primary to Cruz. In exchange, Cruz agreed to not compete in Oregon, whose primary is May 17, and New Mexico.<\/p>\n

Whether Kasich will open\u00a0offices and hire staff in New Mexico remains to be seen.\u00a0It’s not clear that the alliance will have much impact. Both candidates agreed to not publicly campaign in\u00a0certain states but aren’t asking their supporters in those states to vote for the other.<\/p>\n

\"Scott

Courtesy photo<\/p>

Clinton’s New Mexico state director Scott Forrester<\/p><\/div>\n

Clinton’s staff has experience and knowledge of New Mexico. Forrester has most recently been working as a consultant for local and state campaigns in New Mexico. Before that he was executive director of the state’s Democratic Party.<\/p>\n

Forrester also worked as the New Mexico political director for Clinton’s 2008 campaign for president.<\/p>\n

Thuma has worked for Clinton across the country and has also worked for other Democratic politicians. Reyes works for the nonprofit ProgressNow New Mexico as its campaigns director and previously worked as political\u00a0and legislative director for Conservation Voters New Mexico.<\/p>\n

Reyes and Forrester didn’t immediately respond to an email asking whether Clinton might visit the state before the primary.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hillary Clinton appears to be planning to aggressively go after New Mexico’s Democratic Party delegates.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":140871,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[708,226],"class_list":["post-146879","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-2016-election","tag-presidential-race"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146879","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=146879"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146879\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/140871"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=146879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=146879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=146879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}