Opinion: New Mexico leading the nation

As goes New Mexico, so goes the nation.

You might even say we’re leading the way, on a number of fronts.

We’re what the rest of the country is slowly becoming — multicultural to the point at which white folks are no longer running everything. Maybe that makes us a bit of a cultural leader, and perhaps it was reflected in this year’s election.

Here in the Land of Enchantment, 68.48% of registered voters statewide actually voted. That may be unimpressive in some fresh young democracy where people don’t take their right to vote for granted, but for us, it’s a helluva turnout.

The same is true nationally, where more than 150 million people, or about two-thirds of all registered voters, cast ballots. It was a record-breaking turnout.

Here in New Mexico, we went decisively for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris with 54% of the vote. Nationally, with only a relative few ballots still to be counted, it looks as if Biden-Harris won with 51% — which doesn’t look as impressive as the popular vote does. In that, the Biden-Harris ticket received 5.5 million more votes than Donald Trump and Mike Pence got. Compare that to Hillary Clinton’s 2 million more votes than Trump in 2016, and you’ve got a decisive Biden victory — in popularity and in electoral votes.

Meanwhile, down ballot in New Mexico, voters surprised no one by handing victories to U.S. Rep. Deb Haaland, who got a comfortable 58% in Congressional District 1, and Teresa Leger Fernandez, who got 59% of the CD3.

The surprise, if you can call it that, was in Republican Yvette Harrell’s unseating Xochitl Torres Small down south, with an impressive 54% of the vote. The GOP worked hard and took back CD2, as if they never really let go of it.

Now, instead of New Mexicans sending an all-Democrat delegation to Washington D.C., we’re sending four Democrats and one Republican to the House and Senate. That’s what happened nationally as well — Republicans won more seats, but not enough to capture a House majority, while the Senate will probably stay in their hands for at least another two years.

In the U.S. Senate race, the status quo won more than lost. Nobody expected Ben Ray Lujan to lose — and, sure enough, he won with 52% of the vote — though Mark Ronchetti did better than a lot of people expected. So with Democrat Tom Udall’s retirement comes no real change, at least in term of party loyalties. In seniority and capability, however, Lujan’s no Udall.

Now the Senate’s fate lies in Georgia, which will have a pair of January runoffs to determine if the GOP will hold its majority or if the vice president, who serves as tiebreaker in 50-50 votes, will be the deciding force in passing Democratic legislation.

Meanwhile, we can’t presume Michell Lujan Grisham will remain our governor. After four years running New Mexico’s Department of Health, six years in Congress and the past couple of years running the state, she’s well credentialed for a position in Biden’s cabinet. I heard someone suggest her as secretary of Health and Human Services. We’ll see in the days and weeks ahead.

Tom McDonald is editor of the New Mexico Community News Exchange. Contact him at:

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