{"id":38979,"date":"2012-04-17T07:17:52","date_gmt":"2012-04-17T13:17:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=38979"},"modified":"2012-04-17T11:44:51","modified_gmt":"2012-04-17T17:44:51","slug":"its-on-to-november-for-arnold-jones","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2012\/04\/its-on-to-november-for-arnold-jones\/","title":{"rendered":"It\u2019s on to November for Arnold-Jones"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Janice<\/a>

Janice Arnold-Jones<\/p><\/div>\n

Court tosses Gary Smith from the ballot, giving Janice Arnold-Jones time to focus on general-election fundraising. She\u2019ll need it; she ended the last reporting period with a fraction of the cash that all three Democratic candidates had.<\/h4>\n

A state judge tossed Republican Gary Smith<\/a> off the primary election ballot on Monday, making Janice Arnold-Jones<\/a> the GOP\u2019s nominee for the 1st Congressional District seat in the U.S. House.<\/p>\n

District Judge C. Shannon Bacon agreed with eight GOP voters who filed the lawsuit<\/a> alleging that Smith lacked the petition signatures needed to stay in the race.<\/p>\n

\u201cDefendant\u2019s nominating petitions are at least 166 signatures short of the 1,579 valid signatures necessary to secure a position on the Republican primary election ballot for Congressional District 1,\u201d Bacon\u2019s order<\/a> states.<\/p>\n

Smith had to collect additional signatures<\/a> to stay in the race because he won the support of only 4 percent of delegates at\u00a0the recent GOP preprimary nominating convention<\/a>. You need 20 percent to qualify for the ballot.<\/p>\n

Arnold-Jones won the support of 63 percent at that convention.\u00a0Dan Lewis<\/a>, who\u00a0later dropped out<\/a>, won the support of 34 percent of delegates.<\/p>\n

The petitioners alleged that at least 492 signatures Smith submitted to stay in the race weren\u2019t valid. The judge agreed that most of those 492 did not qualify.<\/p>\n

Arnold-Jones said she was \u201cpleased\u201d with the judge\u2019s ruling.<\/p>\n

\u201cGary\u2019s departure from the race gives us the opportunity to focus on fundraising and allow the professional staff we\u2019re adding to work with our volunteers toward a November victory,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd make no mistake \u2013 with the foundation we have laid, we have every intention of winning this race, no matter who the Democratic Party\u2019s nominee happens to be.\u201d<\/p>\n

Arnold-Jones now has time to focus on fundraising while three Democratic candidates battle for their party\u2019s spot on the general election ballot. And she needs it. She raised about $55,000<\/a> in the last fundraising quarter and ended it with $38,000 on hand.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s far behind all three Democrats. Michelle Lujan Grisham<\/a> raised almost $210,000<\/a> and ended the reporting period with almost $345,000 on hand; Eric Griego<\/a> raised more than $275,000<\/a> and ended the reporting period with almost $322,000 on hand; Marty Ch\u00e1vez<\/a> raised almost $153,000<\/a> and ended the reporting period with about $201,000 on hand.<\/p>\n

A prior version of this posting incorrectly identified Bacon as a federal judge.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A state judge tossed Republican Gary Smith off the primary election ballot on Monday, making Janice Arnold-Jones the GOP\u2019s nominee for the 1st Congressional District seat in the U.S. House.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[228,156],"class_list":["post-38979","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-1st-congressional-district-race","tag-2012-election"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38979","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=38979"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38979\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38979"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38979"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38979"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}