{"id":663818,"date":"2018-12-30T20:00:06","date_gmt":"2018-12-31T03:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=663818"},"modified":"2019-01-08T05:42:38","modified_gmt":"2019-01-08T12:42:38","slug":"these-were-nmpolitics-nets-most-read-articles-in-2018","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2018\/12\/these-were-nmpolitics-nets-most-read-articles-in-2018\/","title":{"rendered":"These were NMPolitics.net’s most-read articles in 2018"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Xochitl

Courtesy photo<\/p>

News articles and commentaries about Xochitl Torres Small winning the 2nd Congressional District race were among NMPolitics.net’s most-read articles of 2018.<\/p><\/div>\n

As we say goodbye to 2018, I thought it might be interesting to take a look back at some of NMPolitics.net’s most-read posts of the year. I broke them into two categories — our most-read news articles and the most-read opinion pieces I wrote.<\/p>\n

News articles<\/h3>\n

First, NMPolitics.net’s most-read news articles from 2018:<\/p>\n

5. Who and what will the 2018 Mexican elections bring?<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Few foreign journalists understand Mexican politics like New Mexico’s Kent Paterson — and Mexico is hugely important to our state economically, culturally and in other ways. Paterson’s February explainer on why the 2018 Mexican elections mattered was widely read, demonstrating that New Mexicans care about what happens south of our border.
\n>> READ IT AGAIN<\/a><\/p>\n

4. Krahling’s ‘intimate relationship’ with employee hurt clerk’s office, investigation concludes<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

This article was a follow-up to our initial reporting (see below) telling the public that then-Do\u00f1a Ana County Clerk Scott Krahling was resigning weeks before the November elections he was supposed to oversee. The follow-up article was the first reporting to give the public a sense of why Krahling had resigned and detail problems that plagued the clerk’s office.
\n>> READ IT AGAIN<\/a><\/p>\n

3. With election approaching, Do\u00f1a Ana County clerk abruptly resigns<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Several weeks after I published an in-depth report in July<\/a> on efforts by Krahling to increase voting and civic engagement, I found myself digging into a darker situation that would lead to Krahling’s resignation. Krahling resigned shortly after I informed his attorney I was writing this article, which was\u00a0the first heads-up to the public that something was amiss. Krahling’s resignation led to a transition in the county clerk’s office weeks before the November elections.
\n>> READ IT AGAIN<\/a><\/p>\n

2. Torres Small comes from behind to win 2nd Congressional District race<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

This article, a follow-up to NMPolitics.net’s most-read post of the year (see below), declared Democrat Xochitl Torres Small the winner of southern New Mexico’s congressional seat. “A day after several news outlets\u00a0prematurely declared<\/a>\u00a0that Democrat Xochitl Torres Small had lost the race to replace Steve Pearce in the U.S. House, she came from behind to win,” I wrote.
\n>> READ IT AGAIN<\/a><\/p>\n

1.\u00a0The race between Yvette Herrell and Xochitl Torres Small isn’t over<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

I knew on election night in November that other local and national news organizations were premature in declaring Republican Yvette Herrell the winner of the 2nd Congressional District race before thousands of outstanding votes in Do\u00f1a Ana County were tallied.\u00a0This article detailed why those news organizations were wrong and declared the race still up in the air. After all ballots were counted, Torres Small was the clear winner. This article received national attention and was by far NMPolitics.net’s most-read post of 2018.
\n>> READ IT AGAIN<\/a><\/p>\n

Haussamen commentaries<\/h3>\n

And here are the most-read opinion pieces I wrote in 2018:<\/p>\n

5. A journalist’s view of the groundswell that lifted Torres Small to victory<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

I’d been watching an extraordinary movement growing in Do\u00f1a Ana County since President Donald Trump’s election in 2016. In this column\u00a0from November, I shared my observations and thoughts about the ground-up movement that helped flip southern New Mexico’s congressional seat in 2018.
\n>> READ IT AGAIN<\/a><\/p>\n

4. Misbehaving men bring shame to Do\u00f1a Ana County<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

I wrote in February about two powerful men in Do\u00f1a Ana County government who had behaved inappropriately and, at that point, not been held accountable — then-Undersheriff Ken Roberts, who forced an unwanted lap dance on a female employee, and then-County Commissioner John Vasquez, whose bad behavior included harassing and berating women, journalists and others. Roberts was later fired<\/a>; Vasquez eventually resigned<\/a>.
\n>> READ IT AGAIN<\/a><\/p>\n

3. How Libertarians blew their chance to build a legitimate party in NM<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

I’m a fan of third-party and independent movements, so I was disappointed to have to write in October that Libertarians had squandered their chance to build more power in New Mexico. “It\u2019s too bad that isn\u2019t happening. I like some of the Libertarian candidates. I\u2019d like to see a strong third party,” I wrote. “Maybe someday.”
\n>> READ IT AGAIN<\/a><\/p>\n

2. Trump’s dehumanizing rhetoric should be a wake-up call<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Fed up with Trump’s rhetoric about immigrants, Muslims and others, and our nation’s continued history of persecution of certain people, I wrote in May\u00a0that Trump was wrong to call MS-13 gang members animals who aren’t human. “The lesson we must learn from our mistakes is that seeing and treating all people as human beings is a critical step toward creating a more just and equitable world,” I wrote. “Being consistent about fighting for justice, regardless of which political party is in power, is also critical.”
\n>> READ IT AGAIN<\/a><\/p>\n

1. This is a crime against humanity<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

After we learned that the Trump administration was separating migrant children from their parents to intentionally inflict trauma in the hopes of deterring illegal immigration, I wrote in June, “It\u2019s one thing to take a hardline approach to curbing illegal entry into the United States. It\u2019s an entirely different thing to intentionally harm innocent children.”
\n>> READ IT AGAIN<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Xochitl Torres Small’s victory. Scott Krahling’s resignation. Border and immigration issues. These were among the biggest topics NMPolitics.net covered in 2018.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":589823,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[630],"tags":[137],"class_list":["post-663818","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-about-nmpolitics-net","tag-news-about-this-site"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/663818","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=663818"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/663818\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":664618,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/663818\/revisions\/664618"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/589823"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=663818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=663818"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=663818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}