The historic pile of dollars offers the incumbent the opportunity to showcase an unending list of improvements coming to a town near you.
Today the Guv is signing legislation that will appropriate $50 million to build a hospital in Valencia county. Healthcare is at or near the top of voters list of concerns so it doesn't get better than that.
The pandemic, however, has kept this Governor cooped up at the Capitol and her approval ratings may have suffered as a result. Worried Dems say she will have to pack her travel bags next year--barring a major virus surge--and tell the voters exactly what they will be getting and why she (and federal and state legislators tagging along) deserve the credit. In other words, when a voter asks, "what have you done for me lately?" Show them the money. And there's plenty to show.
The "worried" Dems can fret that pundit Larry Sabato has moved the NM Guv race from "likely Dem" to "leans Dem." Take a look:
Republicans do appear to have a solid challenger to Lujan Grisham in 2020 U.S. Senate nominee Mark Ronchetti, a former television weather forecaster who got within half a dozen points of now-Sen. Ben Ray Lujan (D-NM) last year (there are other candidates, although he is the most notable). Lujan Grisham also has some vulnerabilities that Ronchetti may be able to exploit, although Democrats argue that Ronchetti may very well have peaked as an under-the-radar candidate in last year’s open-seat Senate race.
R's will use such kindling to light up the fundraising circuit.
GOOD LUCK, TRIPP
And they will also use what is a disturbingly high rate of turnover in the administration’s key positions that now includes Communications Director Tripp Stelnicki who is leaving after three years to attend to his mental health.
That the Governor needs a staffing reboot headed into the election year is a given. But her penchant for micromanagement and personal control is also a given. Is there anybody on her staff who can go into her office and speak to her as a near equal and challenge her?
The leading candidates for the GOP nomination are former weatherman Ronchetti, State Rep. Rebecca Dow and investment advisor Greg Zanetti. It may seem a long way off but the June primary is now less than six months from now.
IT'S THE ECONOMY. . .
Joe, you wrote Monday : "The more Democrats stray into the progressive weeds--often ushered there by wealthy out of state backers--the more they risk alienating a traditionally important (Hispanic) demographic that could indeed present a challenge for them in the northern and southern districts."
A more precise way to phrase that: "The more Democrats stray into culturally progressive weeds--and don't deliver on economic progressive or populist policies, particularly due to money coming from wealthy out of state backers--the more they risk...". . . If one looks at polling data of working class people of all skin colors, one sees they, too, most value economic populism and progressivism. There is the disconnect that the nonprogressive DNC and Dem leaders in general don't want to see or strategize from.
Your phrasing obscures the fact that it is progressive Dems who wanted the $1.6 trillion Build Back Better legislation which was about those economic issues Hispanic and all working class voters wanted. If what Dems are going to deliver is mostly symbolic stuff, and cultural liberal/left issues (with a few slender reeds of economic public policies), then the Republican siren call for cultural resentments will be very effective in 2022, and again in 2024.
NOT SANTOLINA
Vanessa Alarid, who lobbies for Santolina, the developer planning a huge development on the far westside of BernCo, says the recent county commission meeting over redistricting where a possible westside commission district was discussed was not prompted by Santolina:
The West Side deserves a County Commissioner solely dedicated to the West Side. . . We could have had a Hispanic majority seat, that upheld the principles of redistricting. Commissioner Debbie O’Malley, however, fought for each and every precinct, and moved the district up to Academy. The folks living in the NE Heights have very different infrastructure problems than folks living on the West Side! The bottom line is -for 10 years not a single BernCo Commissioner has lived west of the river and north of Central. Over 135,000 people have no representation. Thanks to O’Malley’s anti-democratic agenda, that injustice may last another 10 years.
Alarid'a full op-ed is here.
Meantime, Dem state Rep. Moe Maestas, husband of Alarid, will have a tough time trying to succeed westside Dem state Senator Jacob Candelaria who has announced he will not seek re-election in 2024.
Maestas' hope that redistricting would place the Candelaria district in his House district did not pan out. The new boundaries bypass his current residence by just a block or so, report our redistricting watchers.
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(c)NM POLITICS WITH JOE MONAHAN 2021
(c)NM POLITICS WITH JOE MONAHAN 2021