{"id":766,"date":"2006-10-25T13:15:00","date_gmt":"2006-10-25T19:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2006\/10\/house-hopeful-has-long-term-plan-for-victory\/"},"modified":"2006-10-25T13:15:00","modified_gmt":"2006-10-25T19:15:00","slug":"house-hopeful-has-long-term-plan-for-victory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2006\/10\/house-hopeful-has-long-term-plan-for-victory\/","title":{"rendered":"House hopeful has long-term plan for victory"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Lawrence Joy is fairly certain he won\u2019t win the House seat he\u2019s seeking this year. <\/p>\n

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

The Republican ran against Rep. Antonio Lujan, D-Las Cruces, in 2004, but lost with 38 percent of the vote to Lujan\u2019s 62 percent.<\/p>\n

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

He\u2019s running again, and this time Joy has a different take on how to knock off an incumbent in a district where party registration heavily favors the incumbent. He\u2019s talking openly about how he is going to lose the race this year.<\/p>\n

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

\u201cI\u2019m trying to become the underdog,\u201d Joy said.<\/p>\n

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

This isn\u2019t the year for Republicans to win against strong Democratic incumbents, Joy said. Gov. Bill Richardson\u2019s machine makes that almost impossible. And Joy\u2019s own party didn\u2019t want him to run an active campaign, he said, because lower voter turnout in the heavily Democratic, inner-Las Cruces District 35 would help the GOP\u2019s statewide candidates\u2019 chances.<\/p>\n

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

\"\"<\/a>Joy, a member of the Republican Party\u2019s state central committee and the county executive board, said his party\u2019s state leaders believe Democratic voters won\u2019t show up at the polls this year, but he believes the party is underestimating Richardson<\/st1:place><\/st1:city>\u2019s ability to motivate. Joy said if that Republican strategy of relying on low voter turnout holds true, he might have a chance of winning this year \u2013 but he thinks the GOP leaders are wrong.<\/p>\n

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

He thinks Richardson<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> will secure a high Democratic Party turnout.<\/p>\n

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

\u201cThe Democrats are popular in New Mexico<\/st1:state><\/st1:place>. Everyone\u2019s convinced all is fine, despite all the crap,\u201d Joy said, referring to recent scandals. \u201cThere\u2019s plenty of mess, but people don\u2019t seem to care.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

Joy wants to change that. He hadn\u2019t been campaigning heavily or raising hardly any money until several days ago, when his signs finally went up. Now that he\u2019s become more active, Joy is targeting only a specific group of people in his district \u2013 Democrats who have voted in the past several elections. He wants to convince them that they should consider individual candidates, rather than voting straight party ticket.<\/p>\n

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

Joy, the owner of a marketing firm, has analyzed the numbers and talked to many Democrats in his district who won\u2019t consider his candidacy because he\u2019s a Republican.<\/p>\n

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

Joy has the addresses of those Democrats he wants to talk with. Between now and Nov. 7, those are the homes he\u2019ll visit.<\/p>\n

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

\u201cI\u2019m after the historic, traditional Democratic voter. I just want them to make some choices,\u201d Joy said. \u201cIf they\u2019ll take a look, they\u2019ve got a viable choice.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

He\u2019s aiming for a small gain this year that he can use as a springboard to victory next time.<\/p>\n

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

\u201cIf I can gain five points from what I\u2019m doing this year, that would be huge,\u201d Joy said. \u201cThen I\u2019m exactly where I need to be in two years.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

Lujan didn\u2019t return a call seeking comment. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lawrence Joy is fairly certain he won\u2019t win the House seat he\u2019s seeking this year. The Republican ran against Rep. Antonio Lujan, D-Las Cruces, in 2004, but lost with 38 percent of the vote to Lujan\u2019s 62 percent. He\u2019s running again, and this time Joy has a different take on how to knock off an […]<\/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-766","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/766","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=766"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/766\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=766"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=766"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=766"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}