Stansbury And Mother Election Night (Pierre-Louis Journal)

Melanie Stansbury crushed Republican Mark Moores to win the ABQ area congressional seat Tuesday night, reaffirming the deep blue nature of the once competitive district and putting to rest rumblings that the contest could be a national bellwether for the Biden presidency. 

Veteran state political analyst and former legislator Greg Payne said of the Stansbury landslide:

Late Tuesday Stansbury was getting 60 percent of the vote to Moores' 36%. Independent Aubrey Dunn received 3% and Libertarian Chris Manning 1 percent.

Moores never got off the mat. He was immediately knocked down when the early vote was reported and which represented about 75 percent of all votes cast. His big loss to the 42 year old probably quashed any hopes he might have had for the 2022 Republican Guv nomination. 

Stansbury didn't exactly come out of nowhere but she is the least known of any candidate to win the ABQ seat since its founding in 1968. 

It's been a whirlwind for the ABQ North Valley native with the Ivy League pedigree and the White House resume.  She pulled off a major upset in 2018 when she became a state representative by winning an ABQ NE Heights House district never before won by a Dem. 

Then she came with another eyebrow raiser.  In April She lost the first round of balloting at the Dem Party Central Committee nominating meeting to Antoinette Sedillo Lopez only to win the runoff and become the party's choice to replace Rep. Deb Haaland who had been appointed Secretary of Interior by President Biden. 

That Sedillo Lopez loss left a bad taste in the mouths of some progressives who derided Stansbury as an Obama/Clinton/corporate Democrat, not a Bernie Sanders Dem like Sedillo Lopez. 

But most Dems turned a deaf ear to that. Her margin of victory was evidence that while she was not a household name she was able to present an appealing message of getting behind Biden's pandemic programs, pointing to her legislative record and conducting a campaign that unified the party. 

Republicans enduring one of their worst stretches in New Mexico history never had their hearts in the race. The national GOP sat on the sidelines. Moores could not raise money locally. His all crime all the time message was ignored by the mostly liberal voting public and enthusiasm for him suffered among R's because he was not all in on Trump.

The failure of of the crime message to take hold sent a ripple of optimism through the campaign of Mayor Tim Keller who is seeking re-election in November amid a record setting wave of murders. 

Dem State Rep Moe Maestas, teaming  with Dem consultant Sisto Abeyta on our KANW-FM Election Night airwaves, marveled at how the ABQ district once held by Republicans for a 40 year stretch has become so Democratic. "Democrats like us dreamed of this when we were little kids knocking on doors." He declared.

Melanie Stansbury is the latest beneficiary of that dream. But to make a dream come true takes grit and determination, qualities that during the campaign she credited New Mexicans with having and which it turns out she has in spades. 

Over 130,000 voters went to the polls, sending the turnout to about 29 percent of the registered voters, a decent showing for a special election. . .Stansbury gave her victory speech to several hundred invited Dems at Hotel Albuquerque near Old Town. NMGOP Chair Steve Pearce commented for Moores who stayed at home. He said R's would win the seat back from Stansbury in 2022. . . The punches are already flying in the ABQ mayoral race. BernCo Sheriff Manny Gonzales, challenging Mayor Keller, was threatened by an audience member who jumped on the stage where Gonzales was giving a speech and struck him. Gonzales was not hurt. The alleged assailant was arrested. The bizarre incident involved a drone carrying a dildo. We're not kidding.

Now that the congressional election is history, it's just a five month trek to the November 2 ABQ mayoral election. The PAC supporting BernCo Sheriff Manny Gonzales in his challenge of Mayor Tim Keller comes with this: 

An outside PAC has also been formed to support Keller. Gonzales and Keller are both expected to qualify for over $600,000 in public financing that is separate from their PAC's

Former Oklahoma Senator Fred Harris, a longtime New Mexico resident, is 90 years old, but still making news. CNN recently interviewed the populist Democrat about his service on the 1960's racial justice committee known as the Kerner Commission.He is the last surviving member of the panel that investigated civil unrest of that era. Why did the results of the commission's report fade into history? Harris answers.