{"id":820,"date":"2006-11-07T17:26:00","date_gmt":"2006-11-07T23:26:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2006\/11\/whats-at-stake-in-house-races\/"},"modified":"2006-11-07T17:26:00","modified_gmt":"2006-11-07T23:26:00","slug":"whats-at-stake-in-house-races","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2006\/11\/whats-at-stake-in-house-races\/","title":{"rendered":"What&#8217;s at stake in House races"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Three hotly contested House races in <st1:place st=\"on\"><st1:placename st=\"on\">Do\u00f1a<\/st1:placename> <st1:placename st=\"on\">Ana<\/st1:placename> <st1:placename st=\"on\">County<\/st1:placename><\/st1:place> have politicos nervous. Here\u2019s why.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><o:p> <\/o:p><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Republicans currently have 28 seats in the 70-member House. The GOP believes that, if it can gain three seats, it will level the playing field.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><o:p> <\/o:p><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">That means 31 is the magic number.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><o:p> <\/o:p><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Currently, Democrats have such an advantage on committees that they can hold meetings and retain their voting majorities even if a Democratic member has to be absent to present to another committee or for another reason. Republicans don\u2019t hold enough seats to have that same luxury.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><o:p> <\/o:p><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">If they get to 31, however, that changes. It\u2019s enough of a shift that Democrats won\u2019t have such an advantage, and the GOP will have more say in which bills go to floor votes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><o:p> <\/o:p><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">It\u2019s about balance.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><o:p> <\/o:p><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Which brings us to the three races in <st1:place st=\"on\"><st1:placename st=\"on\">Do\u00f1a<\/st1:placename> <st1:placename st=\"on\">Ana<\/st1:placename> <st1:placename st=\"on\">County<\/st1:placename><\/st1:place>. House Minority Whip Terry Marquardt, R-Alamogordo, is challenged by Democrat Nate Cote, and it\u2019s a close race. The Republicans will likely need to hold this seat in order to reach 31.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><o:p> <\/o:p><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Republicans are working hard to replace Rep. Andy Nu\u00f1ez, D-Hatch, with GOP challenger Isaac Chavez. And with the retirement of Rep. Ed Boykin, R-Las Cruces, Democrats are also working hard to take that seat.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><o:p> <\/o:p><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">In addition, there are three other seats around the state the Republicans are optimistic about taking \u2013 those held by Democrats Donald Whitaker of Eunice, the retiring Joe Stell of <st1:city st=\"on\"><st1:place st=\"on\">Carlsbad<\/st1:place><\/st1:city>, and the retired Fred Luna of Los Lunas.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><o:p> <\/o:p><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Half of the hottest House races to watch are in <st1:place st=\"on\"><st1:placename st=\"on\">Do\u00f1a<\/st1:placename> <st1:placename st=\"on\">Ana<\/st1:placename>  <st1:placename st=\"on\">County<\/st1:placename><\/st1:place>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Three hotly contested House races in Do\u00f1a Ana County have politicos nervous. Here\u2019s why. Republicans currently have 28 seats in the 70-member House. The GOP believes that, if it can gain three seats, it will level the playing field. That means 31 is the magic number. Currently, Democrats have such an advantage on committees that [&hellip;]<\/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-820","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/820","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=820"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/820\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=820"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=820"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=820"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}