{"id":4773,"date":"2009-08-03T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2009-08-03T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2009\/08\/women-dominate-governors-race-at-least-for-now\/"},"modified":"2009-08-03T06:00:00","modified_gmt":"2009-08-03T12:00:00","slug":"women-dominate-governors-race-at-least-for-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2009\/08\/women-dominate-governors-race-at-least-for-now\/","title":{"rendered":"Women dominate governor’s race, at least for now"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Though others are likely to enter the race, right now it\u2019s just three women officially vying for the right to be governor<\/span><\/p>\n

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No woman has ever been governor of New Mexico, but there\u2019s a good chance that will change next year.<\/p>\n

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Though there will likely be other candidates entering the 2010 gubernatorial race, there are currently only three who have said with certainty they are running. All three are women.<\/p>\n

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On the Democratic side, there\u2019s the party\u2019s likely nominee, Lt. Gov. Diane Denish<\/a>, who has been running for governor for years and already has about $2 million on hand for her campaign.<\/p>\n

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On the Republican side, there are two: Do\u00f1a Ana County District Attorney Susana Martinez<\/a>, who entered the race earlier this month, and state Rep. Janice Arnold-Jones<\/a> of Albuquerque, who has formed an exploratory committee and said last week<\/a> that she will make her candidacy official in a few weeks, as soon as she recovers from knee surgery.<\/p>\n

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

\u201cThe higher level of office the more difficult it has been for women to capture, so it is really unprecedented and quite positive that we have so many credible women candidates declaring for the governor\u2019s race,\u201d said Christine Sierra, a political science professor at the University of New Mexico.<\/p>\n

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

We\u2019re about 15 months away from the November 2010 election, and lots could change between now and then. There are at least two other candidates who appear headed toward entering the race. Former state GOP Chairman Allen Weh<\/a> has formed an exploratory committee, hired staff, and has been traveling the state. Public relations professional Doug Turner<\/a>, a Republican, has also hired staff and is traveling around the state. He says he\u2019s leaning toward running.<\/p>\n

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

But right now, it\u2019s just the three women in the race.<\/p>\n

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

By the numbers<\/span><\/p>\n

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

New Mexico is one of 27 states that has never had a woman governor, according to the Center for American Women and Politics<\/a> (CAWP) at Rutgers University. Two of seven statewide elected officials in New Mexico are women — Denish and Secretary of State Mary Herrera<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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

And 30.4 percent of state lawmakers are women — 11 of 42 in the Senate and 23 of 70 in the House. According to CAWP, New Mexico is currently 12th in the nation for percentage of state legislators who are women.<\/p>\n

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The number of women elected to New Mexico\u2019s Legislature has remained fairly constant since 1997, but there\u2019s been a significant shift since 1979, when, according to CAWP, five of the state\u2019s 112 lawmakers — 4.5 percent — were women.<\/p>\n

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Having to \u2018work twice as hard\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

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

Arnold-Jones said in an interview that it\u2019s \u201cinteresting that, at this place in history,\u201d the declared gubernatorial candidates are all women. She said all three have \u201cdiverse perspectives and expertise\u201d but share at least one thing: As women, they often had to \u201cwork twice as hard\u201d to reach their goals in life.<\/p>\n

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

Still, Arnold-Jones said she doesn\u2019t think much about how being a woman relates to her political career. She said she prefers to talk about policy issues.<\/p>\n

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

Martinez went even further, saying in an interview that the fact that all three candidates are women \u201cjust is what it is.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Martinez has made similar remarks<\/a> in the past when asked about her status as a Hispanic woman. In this interview, she said she has many other credentials, including being a lawyer, that make her qualified to be governor, but that being a woman doesn\u2019t make her more qualified than anyone else.<\/p>\n

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

Denish and her campaign did not respond to a request for comment for this article. Denish, it\u2019s worth noting, is on the advisory board for Emerge New Mexico<\/a>, a group dedicated to training Democratic women to run for office. And she was endorsed<\/a> several weeks ago by EMILY\u2019s List, which, according to its Web site<\/a>, is \u201cdedicated to building a progressive America by electing pro-choice Democratic women to office.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Though others are likely to enter the race, right now it\u2019s just three women officially vying for the right to be governor No woman has ever been governor of New Mexico, but there\u2019s a good chance that will change next year. Though there will likely be other candidates entering the 2010 gubernatorial race, there are […]<\/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-4773","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4773","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=4773"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4773\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}