New Mexico - 2024 Election Compendium

Topic: 2024 Election Analysis

New Mexico 2024 Presidential Election Review

Author’s Note: All 2024 Election Reviews can be found here.

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Outcome

Harris +6.0% (+55,411)

My Prediction

Harris +4.0%

Preface

If current political dynamics persist, and the GOP’s newfound appeal to minority voters penetrates deeper into lower income levels, I think New Mexico may become a light red state by the 2030s. Getting over the hump is going to require greater strategy and precision by the Republican Party, as three urban counties continue to dominate statewide races with little sign of GOP resistance.

New Mexico spent the entire cycle in a group of states I called “leaners” – those highly likely to go to their normal electoral vote recipient, but by a margin of less than 8 points. People were getting bullish on Trump flipping it, especially when Biden was sputtering out near the end of his campaign, but its combination of bad election laws and raw vote margins in Bernalillo, Santa Fe, and Dona Ana Counties kept me bearish.

George W. Bush won the state narrowly in 2004 after nearly picking it off in 2000, but times have changed since then, especially regarding Democrat margin in Bernalillo County, which contains metro Albuquerque. Since Barack Obama’s statewide high point in 2008 (+15.1% victory), New Mexico has begun to drift ever so slowly toward Republicans, with the registration shift in 2020 moving rightward in all but one county, and taking the state from D+13.9% to D+11.3%:

Considering Hispanic shifts evident in other state registration data and observing polling showing a five-point race, I put New Mexico at Harris +3-5% (average of +4.0%) for my final call. After late ballot counting, the margin settled at +6.0%.

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Analysis

· Party registration shifts since 2020 (32 counties shifted toward the GOP) suggested Trump would improve in 32 of 33 counties, with Los Alamos County being the only county with a left-shifting registration advantage thanks to their massive post-graduate population. The party registration indicator went 31 for 33 (93.9%) in determining county shift in New Mexico, with margins in 30 counties more favorable to Trump than in 2020 by percentage, and Los Alamos moving left as suggested by its registration index. Sierra (2.3%) and Union (4.0%) Counties were the two counties with a GOP registration shift since 2020 that nudged left. County result shifts below:

· Unlike 2020, Bernalillo County had enough Democrat margin to cover the entire state for Harris at +65,355. That county is the largest in the state and when paired with Santa Fe and Dona Ana Counties, makes a formidable margin:

· Thanks to his gains with the Hispanic working class, and most likely far less ballot stuffing taking place at New Mexico State University than in 2020, Trump nearly halved the Democrat margin in Dona Ana County. Equal gains in Santa Fe and Bernalillo County would have brought the race for the presidency within a single point.

· In the 30 counties outside of these Democrat strongholds, Trump increased his raw vote margin of victory by +21,977 from 2020, with big gains in the conservative southeast, which contains many oil-rich counties, and improved margins of defeat in many minority-majority counties full of Hispanics and Native Americans, such as McKinley and Rio Arriba Counties. The outlying counties compared to the urban Democrat strongholds are shown below:

· Trump won national bellwethers Hidalgo and Valencia Counties for the third consecutive election and took Socorro County for the first GOP presidential win of the county since 1988.

· Harris lagged Biden by 22,812 ballots statewide, and in all but 5 counties. She failed to reach Hillary Clinton’s ballot count in 8 counties, of which nearly all of them have high minority populations. The three-cycle contrast map is shown below:

· Harris’s most notable plunge was in Bernalillo County, where she lagged Biden’s ballot count by 9,640, even though Trump had a very minor gain in his own right. The shift rightward in Bernalillo was 3.4% and highlights the likelihood that Biden’s 2020 ballot count was substantially enhanced by relaxed mail-in voting standards and ballot harvesting. The net two-cycle Democrat gain of 40,700 is suggestive of an enhanced ability to “bake in” the ballot count and ensure a total of ballots substantial enough to win statewide elections.

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Opportunities for Election Manipulation

Familiarize yourself with the grading criteria for my election ratings. Here is how New Mexico rates with regard to the most common election demerits and its own unique traits:

· Voter ID – No identification is required to vote in New Mexico.

· Same Day Registration – New Mexico permits same day voter registration.

· Ballot Harvesting – State law for returning ballots is restrictive, authorizing only caregivers or immediate family members to return them; however, precinct data from the largest counties, combined with an increase in mail-in balloting, suggests these guidelines are routinely violated.

· Automatic Voter Registration – New Mexico operates Automatic Voter Registration.

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The Road Ahead

New Mexico should continue toward competitiveness in future cycles since its primary minority groups are becoming more Republican, as evidenced by party registration. It is also firmly in the grasp of the Lujan political family, which has enshrined into law most of the tricks used to keep states blue, including fortification of the major urban county, Bernalillo County. It will be difficult for Democrats to make New Mexico solidly blue again as it was for Barack Obama, but the dominance of urban areas against small rural counties may produce a Minnesota effect, keeping a brightly red state in terms of geography a pale shade of blue.

Santa Fe County is full of white liberals and contains the capital city of the same name, a toxic political combination for Republicans. Progress in Dona Ana County must be capitalized on, but the true goal for Republicans in New Mexico must be to severely crater Democrat margins in Bernalillo County. Despite his progress elsewhere in the state, Trump added just 2,627 net new ballots to his count there, and closed margin mostly because of Harris’s decline from Biden. If, and only if, Bernalillo County becomes competitive again (Bush lost it by 4.2% when he won New Mexico in 2004), then the statewide results will follow suit. That means maximum effort must be put into investigating voter roll corruption in the county, which has only increased since Automatic Voter Registration began five years ago, and the state allowed voters to sign up for permanent mail-ballot lists last year. This corruption extends to smaller counties, as the 2022 audit of Otero County by David and Erin Clements proved. Those two have done diligent work in The Land of Enchantment and far beyond and deserve recognition in these pages.

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Final Grade and Closing Commentary

The Top 5 Election Integrity Targets in New Mexico are (in no order):

· Bernalillo County

· Sante Fe County

· Dona Ana County

· Sandoval County

· McKinley County

New Mexico receives a Grade of 2 - Marginal Concern – based on its identified issues, especially excessive mail-in voting, Automatic Voter Registration, and lack of voter ID. It is likely Santa Fe and Bernalillo Counties have reliable ballot harvesting networks that were responsible for keeping margins high in those counties, although the overall ballot count and Trump’s gain in overall margin (+4.8%) do not suggest the level of manipulation met or exceeded that performed in 2020.

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Seth Keshel, MBA, is a former Army Captain of Military Intelligence and Afghanistan veteran. His analytical method of election forecasting and analytics is known worldwide, and he has been commended by President Donald J. Trump for his work in the field.