{"id":3964,"date":"2008-11-05T02:54:00","date_gmt":"2008-11-05T08:54:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2008\/11\/rawsonfischmann-race-is-too-close-to-call\/"},"modified":"2008-11-05T02:54:00","modified_gmt":"2008-11-05T08:54:00","slug":"rawsonfischmann-race-is-too-close-to-call","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2008\/11\/rawsonfischmann-race-is-too-close-to-call\/","title":{"rendered":"Rawson\/Fischmann race is too close to call"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>The hottest race yet to be decided is the state Senate District 37<\/a> contest between Republican Leonard Lee Rawson<\/a> and Democrat Steve Fischmann<\/a> — and it may not be over any time soon. <\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

With all votes in Sierra<\/st1:placename> County<\/st1:placetype> in and all but absentee ballots counted in Do\u00f1a<\/st1:placename> Ana<\/st1:placename> County<\/st1:placename><\/st1:place>, challenger Fischmann leads the Senate minority whip by 136 votes. Fischmann currently has 11,330 votes, or 50.3 percent, to Rawson\u2019s 11,194 votes, or 49.7 percent.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

\n

In addition to the unknown number of absentee ballots that haven\u2019t yet been tallied in Do\u00f1a<\/st1:placename> Ana<\/st1:placename> County<\/st1:placename><\/st1:place>, both counties have yet to consider any provisional ballots that were cast to determine whether they should be counted. And then there\u2019s the situation with those who requested absentee ballots but ended up not being able to vote<\/a> because they didn\u2019t receive them in time and didn\u2019t or couldn\u2019t take advantage of any alternative method of voting. Just like the county didn\u2019t release absentee or provisional numbers late Tuesday, it also did not say how many people in the Senate district requested an absentee ballot but ended up not voting.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\u201cSomeone\u2019s decided that Lee and I are not allowed to sleep,\u201d Fischmann said late Tuesday. He described himself as being \u201con pins and needles.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Asked specifically about the absentee-ballot snafu — the delay in people receiving their ballots was attributable at least in part to the county\u2019s noncompliance with a state law that requires it to send out ballots within 24 hours of receiving requests for ballots — Fischmann called it \u201ca confusing situation.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

\u201cMy biggest nightmare before this election was that something like this would happen, because we knew it was going to be so close,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd whatever it is, we\u2019ll just have to live through it and see where this goes.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Rawson could not be reached for comment.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Insiders say a loss by Rawson could lead to the overthrowing of the Senate\u2019s leadership. A bipartisan coalition that has been the primary check on the governor\u2019s power could be replaced with a more progressive group of leaders who might be friendlier to the governor\u2019s agenda.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The hottest race yet to be decided is the state Senate District 37 contest between Republican Leonard Lee Rawson and Democrat Steve Fischmann — and it may not be over any time soon. With all votes in Sierra County in and all but absentee ballots counted in Do\u00f1a Ana County, challenger Fischmann leads the Senate […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3964","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=3964"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3964\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}