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“Many New Mexico voters lack choices in legislative races”
by Marjorie Childress, New Mexico in Depth newsletter
April 10, 2024
As the 2024 primary election gets underway, it bears pointing out the slim opportunities New Mexicans actually have to cast a meaningful vote for the people who represent them in the Legislature.
First, a big chunk of legislative districts have so many Democrats or so many Republicans that there isn’t a serious race for those seats in the November general election.
There will be a few hot races – where both parties will have hard fought primaries and then a hard-fought general election. But there aren’t many.
Here are some numbers to brew on:
In the Senate, there are just four districts out of 42 where there’s a fairly even split between Republicans and Democrats – districts 12, 21, 29 and 40. All four are in the state’s metropolitan region around Albuquerque. Republicans have safe seats in 11 districts. Democrats have 27 safe seats.
By “safe,” I mean the voter share of one party is more than 40%. Even if the incumbent has a challenger in the general election, the incumbent has a strong likelihood of winning even if the race is hard fought.
In the House, by the same metrics, there are just 13 seats out of 70 where neither party has more than 40% of the voter share. I count 16 safe Republican seats in the House, and 41 safe Democratic seats.
Thirty six incumbents across the two chambers have no challenger at all.
Second, in some but not all of those “safe” districts where there’s not much of a general election, primary election voters will determine who gets to serve in the Legislature. In most of those races, in effect, a minority of voters will choose the state lawmaker. That’s because New Mexico excludes voters not registered with either major party from participating in the primary. Independent voters make up about a quarter of the voting public.
There are other issues regarding representation as well – namely, how the once-a-decade redistricting process skews in favor of one group over the other. It’s true that more New Mexicans are registered as Democrats than Republicans, so Democrats’ majority hold on the Legislature reflects that demographic reality.
But there’s a difference between exercising one’s majority and inordinate domination of the field. Consider these numbers: Democrats safely control 59% of House seats, and 64% of Senate seats – based on the criteria that more than 40% of a district is composed of registered Democrats. But when it comes to registered voters in the state, just 43% are signed up as Democrats.
