Election '24 is in the books, made official by the State Canvass Board this week. It turns out the closest race of all did not have any candidates. That was the race to beat the turnout of the last presidential election in 2020. 

And talk about a hot contest. 

This year 928,290 New Mexicans cast general election ballots. In the last presidential election year in 2020 turnout was nearly identical with 928,230 votes cast. That's a tiny difference of 60 votes. Talk about a cliff-hanger!

Unlike political contests no one was biting their nails over the closeness of the turnout contest, but the finish was still thrilling for the political junkies. 

As for the percentage of registered voters taking part, this year official numbers say it was 67.13 percent. In 2020 when slightly fewer were registered to vote turnout was 68.2 percent. 

Neither mark comes close to the all-time modern record of 2008 when Obama was elected president. That year a whopping 833,365 votes were tallied for a record 70.4 percent of all registered state voters.

A surprise from this election was the popularity of the new law allowing voters to register and vote on the same day. 25,485 did so. That was a challenge for some election officials and will have them working to make the process smoother in the future.

BY THE NUMBERS

Final official results from the SOS:

Total Registered Voters eligible to participate in this election – 1,382,761 Total Voter Turnout – 928,290 (67.13%) Absentee Turnout – 111,403 (12.00%) Early Voting Turnout – 556,281 (59.93%) Election Day Turnout – 252,515 (27.20%) Hand Tally/Provisional – 8,091 (0.87%) Use of Same-Day Voter Registration (Early Voting and Election Day) – 52,358 Election Day SDR transactions – 25,485 

RECOUNTS

The State Canvass Board--composed of the Governor, Secretary of State and Chief Justice of the NM Supreme Court--ordered automatic recounts in two close contests, including House District 57 in Sandoval County. GOP Rep. Catherine Cullen holds a 130 vote lead over Dem hopeful Michelle Sandoval. While qualifying for an automatic recount, a margin of that size is rarely overturned. The Board also ordered an automatic recount for an at-large position on the Los Alamos County Commission.

BEATING THE LINE 

Campaign consultants for Dem state Sen. Moe Maestas are pleased with the final results. They say the District 26 ABQ Westside lawmaker received more votes than either Sen. Heinrich or Kamala Harris. Maestas hails from a heavily Hispanic area, a group Trump improved with this election. Maestas  represented the area for years as a state rep. He was appointed to fill a senate vacancy and now will serve his first elected term.  

HAPPY THANKSGIVING

This is our 21st Thanksgiving in this space (yikes!) and we're grateful to be able to wish you Happy Thanksgiving and thank you for making this the #1 NM political blog over these many years. Knowing how busy life can be today, we are appreciative of everyone who takes a moment to tune in. (If we keep it up, we just might become a tradition. :)

Happy Thanksgiving, New Mexico.

Reporting from Albuquerque, I'm Joe Monahan. 

This is The Home of New Mexico Politics.        

Yard Sign

Should someone--like Senate Finance Committee Chairman George Muñoz--put Western New Mexico University and the taxpaying public out of their misery and force the resignation of school President Joseph Shepard, or will there be even more reports of the president's outrageous and unaccountable spending abuses? 

Shepard is paid over $$350,000 a year and has been president of the Silver City-based university since 2011. He has taken liberties with the school's expense account far beyond proper boundaries and his onetime celebrity wife Valerie Plame has gone along for the ride. 

State Auditor Joseph Maestas says as much in his review and now the State Ethics Commission is taking a look.

Still, the recalcitrant and tone-deaf WNMU Board of Regents clings to the tarnished president, putting them on course for a showdown with the Legislature. (The Governor, who appoints the Regents, could also put pressure on the Regents to give Joe the boot but hasn't indicated she will.) 

Shepard

Overlooked in the scandal is that Muñoz and company hold the purse strings to WNMU. That leverage may be needed to convince the WNMU Regents that their President has gone off the rails and send him to the Mustang showers.

Shepard and and Flame are lucky that a DA is not looking into the mess and are able to head for the exits without skidding. But time is not on their side. 

WNMU boosters are hoping Santa Fe does what it does best and uses that power of the purse to get the blindfolded Regents and their wayward President to see the light--and the door.

 LIVIN' LARGE WNMU STYLE

WNMU spent $25,500 in taxpayer money to send six people to the Ritz-Carlton, Rancho Mirage, a resort in the scenic desert of Palm Springs, California. The auditor’s report says that figure was part of a total of $363,525.99 misused as part of the university’s “wasteful” and “improper” spending. . .Examiners. . . found that the university spent more than $214,000 on 402 domestic and international trips that violated its own policies, along with nearly $150,000 on university credit card transactions that also broke policy. . . . WNMU President Joseph Shepard has often traveled with his wife, former CIA agent-turned-author Valerie Plame, and with members of the WNMU Board of Regents, visiting faraway places like Zambia, Greece and Spain in the name of courting international students and their out-of-state tuition dollars.  

ROBINHOOD

Reade Ron Nelson pushes back against last week's Our Voices column from progressive Mitchell Freedman:

Hi Joe, Freedman writes: "I will be pushing our representatives to ensure nobody making $40,000 or less should be paying any state income tax--plus those earning over $175,000 should be paying 7% on the margin and those making over $500,000 9% on the margin.” 

Hint: this isn’t progressive economics, it is the old Democrat version of Robin Hood, robbing the rich to pay the poor.  

THE LATINO VOTE 

The question du jour for Democrats is how do they stop Hispanic voters from drifting towards the Republicans as many did in the November election. Arizona Dem US Senator-elect Ruben Gallego has some thoughts:

What about Latino men, specifically, who moved away from Democrats in a striking way for the second presidential cycle in a row? Latino men feel like their job is to provide security for their family, economic security and physical security, and when that is compromised, they start looking around. What happened post-pandemic with inflation, Latino men felt that no matter what they did, they couldn’t get economic security for their family because the prices were so damn high. Mentally speaking, Latino men believe they could always work their way out of anything. Oh, if I want to buy this, I’ll just add extra hours or I’ll just cut here. I’ll just work here. And I think for the first time in a while, they felt that they weren’t doing that and they weren’t providing it. And the future, to them, seems bleaker also for the kids. 

THE BOTTOM LINES

Dem Rep. Eliseo Alcon, 74, who announced his resignation from his western NM House seat over health-related issues over the weekend, now says he suffers from liver cancer and is in hospice care. We wish him well. 

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Rep. Alcon

Veteran Democratic State Representative Eliseo Alcon of District 6 in Milan has resigned his seat because of health issues, confirms his son and political consultant David Alcon who told us: 

On Saturday Rep. Alcon submitted his retirement application to PERA and his notice of retirement to the Legislature.

Alcon made it official in a letter to the Secretary of State.

The reason for the sudden departure? Alcon has liver cancer and is under hospice care. He will turn 75 in January.

Alcon, one of the few moderate Dems remaining in the state House, was first elected from his two county district--Cibola and McKinley in western NM--in the 2008 election. He won his bid for a a ninth term at the November election with 59 percent of the vote.

Alcon was employed as a miner and union foreman at the Kerr-McGee uranium mines and as a magistrate judge. He served in the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War. 

In 2019, Senator Heinrich presented Alcon with a Bronze Star he earned, but never received, for his service as a combat medic in Vietnam. 

Alcon, chairman of the House Labor, Veterans' and Military Affairs Committee, has been an advocate for veterans at the Roundhouse, helping to push through constitutional amendments that aided them. He was also instrumental in the creation of a suicide hotline for veterans. 

In addition, he was a major voice for state funding for Navajo Nation chapters in his district as well as for Zuni Pueblo. He was also supportive of labor causes whose unions consistently endorsed him

Alcon's seat will be filled by an appointment from the Governor with the county commissions of Cibola and McKinley counties submitting nominations. The seat can be expected to be filled by a Democrat.

FRED HARRIS 

Fred Harris, the gregarious and consequential former Senator who had stints as chairman of the national  Democratic party, died over the weekend at the age of 94. 

The NYT obituary detailed his life and times, including his 1976 presidential run and the many other facets of public service of the native Oklahoman who embraced New Mexico when he came here in the early 80's and stayed for good.

ABQ attorney Bob McNeill, 85, was part of a Monday morning breakfast club with Harris where politics was always on the table. He recalled this anecdote:

When he was running for President he drove a bus emblazoned with a large logo that said: "Road to the White House." 

He told me: "When I was campaigning and driving across Indiana, a lady rolled down her window and shouted, "Fred, you're going the wrong way!"

Harris was a liberal Democrat with a notable streak of populism that won him national acclaim. We found him dispassionate when it came to analyzing the events of the day no matter how emotional the atmosphere. No wonder his UNM poly sci classes were a major hit. 

It was a high honor to have Harris as an avid blog reader as well as a listener to our long-running Election Night broadcasts on KANW 89.1 FM. He once told me:

When the coverage comes on I close the door, turn on the radio and listen to you guys.

If that doesn't keep you on your political toes, not much will. 

Harris was humble about his contributions but his lifelong public service and insightful writings about the nation gave him the status of great American and New Mexican. That's a hurdle very few cross and earned Fred Harris a chapter of his own in the never-ending story of La Politica. 

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