![\"Donald](\"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/Trump-Donald-336x215.jpg\")
<\/a>Gage Skidmore \/ Creative Commons<\/p>
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump. (photo cc info<\/a>)<\/p><\/div>\n Campaigns say lots of things, especially in the final scramble, that may or may not be true. So Trump’s claim during an Albuquerque rally<\/a>\u00a0on Sunday that internal polling has him “tied in New Mexico” with Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton could be a bluff.<\/p>\n But where candidates direct their time and money in the final days matters. And Trump has directed lots of resources to New Mexico.<\/p>\n Trump and GOP\u00a0vice presidential candidate\u00a0Mike Pence<\/a> have both visited the state this week. Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr., will make two campaign stops in San Juan County<\/a> on Friday, including one on the Navajo Nation<\/a>.<\/p>\n And Trump is spending\u00a0nearly $200,000<\/a> on TV ads in the state.<\/p>\n The Clinton campaign is taking Trump’s play for New Mexico seriously enough that it\u00a0is spending\u00a0more than $165,000<\/a> on TV ads here.<\/p>\n But a tight race\u00a0in New Mexico isn’t the only message coming from the Trump campaign. A fundraising email sent Tuesday\u00a0included this map: “While we are not taking any state for granted, those colored red are states that we can safely assume will vote for Donald<\/span> Trump,”\u00a0Trump’s campaign manager Kellyanne Conway wrote in the email. “<\/span>Blue states favor Hillary. Blank states are too close to call.”<\/p>\n New Mexico is listed as a state that favors Clinton, not one that’s too close to call.<\/p>\n There hasn’t been much public polling in New Mexico because most believe the state favors Clinton. One recent poll<\/a> had Clinton ahead by 5 percentage points, 45-40, on Oct. 24. We don’t know much about how the survey sample\u00a0was weighted,\u00a0so the poll by itself isn’t proof that\u00a0New Mexico is in play. But it’s reason to pay attention.<\/p>\n Another survey conducted this week had Clinton leading Trump by 8\u00a0points<\/a> in New Mexico. But its methodology is\u00a0new and experimental, so its reliability isn’t clear.<\/p>\n Many analysts think Clinton is likely to win New Mexico. The website FiveThirtyEight.com, as of today, gives Clinton an 82.3 percent chance of winning here<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Albuquerque Journal plans to release a new\u00a0poll of the presidential race in New Mexico on Sunday. We’ll have a better sense of where things stand then.<\/p>\n In the meantime, perhaps its worth considering\u00a0where\u00a0in New Mexico the Trump campaign is visiting this week — and how those stops might benefit him in other states.<\/p>\n Pence visited Las Cruces, which is in the El Paso, Texas media market. A number of\u00a0Trump supporters\u00a0traveled from El Paso<\/a> to see Pence, and his rally was covered prominently<\/a> on El Paso television stations<\/a>.<\/p>\n That\u00a0matters in Texas. The race there leans in Trump’s favor<\/a>, but some\u00a0polls have showed\u00a0a tightening contest<\/a>, and Clinton has diverted some resources<\/a> to\u00a0Texas.<\/p>\n Trump Jr.’s visits to Farmington and Shiprock may also help Trump\u00a0in other states. Clinton has made a play for Arizona<\/a>\u00a0—\u00a0where the polls favor Trump, but not by much<\/a>. A visit to Shiprock, on the Navajo Nation, will get media coverage throughout the Navajo Nation and could impact Navajo voters in Arizona and Utah as well.<\/p>\n Speaking of Utah, there’s\u00a0a three-way race<\/a> there between Trump, Clinton and independent Evan McMullin<\/a>,\u00a0a Mormon who’s gained the support of many in the heavily Mormon state. McMullin has a chance of taking\u00a0red Utah’s electoral votes away from Trump.<\/p>\n The Farmington area has a significant Mormon population. The visit to an evangelical church there\u00a0by Trump Jr. could also potentially impact\u00a0voters in nearby Utah.<\/p>\n As for Trump’s Albuquerque visit, it got national attention, blanketed New Mexico in coverage, and hit Southwestern Colorado, which gets it television from Albuquerque. Colorado leans in Clinton’s favor but\u00a0may also be in play<\/a>.<\/p>\n Maybe Trump thinks he can win New Mexico. Maybe his campaign’s visits here are also about impacting the vote\u00a0in surrounding states. It’s worth noting that FiveThirtyEight.com lists\u00a0Arizona, Colorado and Utah as\u00a0states to watch closely, but not New Mexico or Texas.<\/p>\n The presidential race has swung widely with the news cycle lately. A\u00a0Trump victory appeared unlikely<\/a>\u00a0a couple of weeks ago, after the release of a 2005 video in which he\u00a0described sexually assaulting women. So at the time Clinton was expanding her campaign into normally red states.<\/p>\n![\"trumpmap\"](\"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/TrumpMap-771x496.jpg\")
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