The hottest political race this season in New Mexico is the Republican primary for governor—and it may all come down to name recognition.
Capitalizing on his statewide notoriety as the party’s nominee for U.S. Senate in 2020, in which he garnered 45 percent of the vote, and on his exposure as a TV meteorologist, Mark Ranchetti is the recognized frontrunner in a field of five candidates.
Recent polls give Ranchetti a comfortable lead over three-term New Mexico State Representative Rebecca Dow.
Going into Tuesday’s primary, Ranchetti is at 45 percent, Dow at 17 percent, and potential dark horse candidate, retired Brigadier General Greg Zanetti, is at 9 percent.
Bernalillo County Commissioner Jay Block polled around 8 percent and Ethel Maharg was at 1 percent, with 21 percent undecided as of May 23.
New Mexico television and radio programming have been saturated with attack ads fired back and forth between Ranchetti and Dow.
“GOP infighting has helped turn this state Blue. In the past it has blown our chances of winning entirely,” Bernalillo County Republican Chairman John Rockwell told The Epoch Times in a phone interview.
Meanwhile, Zanetti has been waging a positive campaign focusing on the issues of the border, crime, education, energy, and water.
He told The Epoch Times, “New Mexico politics is a big club of which I am not a member.”
Zanetti has done comparatively little advertising due to lack of funds.
He said his positive message has been resonating with the voters, if not the donors.
Democrats
On the Democrat side, the dynamic of name recognition may also be the deciding factor in the fiercely contested primary for the nomination for state attorney general between State Auditor Brian Colon and Albuquerque Assistant District Attorney Raul Torrez.Colon is a former chairman of the state Democratic Party of New Mexico and has been elected to the statewide post of auditor general.
At a New Mexican restaurant in Santa Fe the day before the primary, an elderly diner named Ruben said of Grisham, “I’m a Democrat. I like how she gave free tuition to every college student in our state.
“My big concerns about New Mexico are that we should not ignore COVID-19. We shouldn’t forget about it because it can still kill us. And I am concerned about how people no longer want to work.”
In a phone interview, New Mexico state GOP chairman and former Congressman Steve Pearce told The Epoch Times, “The important thing about this primary is we are going to pick a candidate to beat Gov. Grisham.
“Republican enthusiasm is high, and we are expecting a strong turnout on Tuesday.”
The Democratic Party of New Mexico was twice contacted by The Epoch Times for comment on the primary election but did not respond.
First elected in 2018, Grisham, a Democrat, is seeking her second term.
“In view of the destruction of the economy of this state by Grisham, we have a good chance of defeating her, and we may pick up 11 state house seats,” Pearce said.
“In Albuquerque, we recently won two out of three council seats.
“In Lovington, two of our candidates were elected, winning control of the school board for conservatives. The two county commissioner seats we won there gave us the majority in that body, as well.
“Consistent with the national trend, Hispanics are shifting to the Republicans, as are some blacks and even some young people.
“The young have discovered they don’t like socialism, now that they’ve seen it,” he added.
Regarding the race for the U.S. House of Representatives, Pearce said, “The Democrats have a couple of candidates wanting to unseat Republican Congresswoman Yvette Herrell in the Second District: Darshan Patel and Gabriel Vasquez.
“I say to the people of that oil and gas-rich district, ‘Just look at what the Democrats have done to the coal industry in West Virginia.”
Noting that the Democrat-authored redistricting plan, which radically changed the partisan composition of the Second District in the Democrat’s favor, is headed for trial, Pearce said for Republicans, “It’s a must win-case.”
Two Republicans, Peggy Muller-Aragon and Anthony Thornton, are vying for the right to challenge incumbent Democrat Lt. Gov. Howie Morales in November.
In New Mexico, the lieutenant governor nominee for each party is selected by a vote of the people in the primary election.
The winning candidate then forms a ticket with his or her respective party’s nominees for governor to run as an indivisible team in the November general election.
Muller-Aragon is a retired schoolteacher and current vice-president of the board of education in the Albuquerque Public Schools.
She contends she is more electable than Thornton, who has never held public office.
She citied her 2015 win of a school board seat against an entrenched progressive incumbent and her defeat of a teachers’ union-backed challenger in 2019 as evidence of her electability and experience.
Thornton, who holds a Ph.D. in aerospace engineering, received nearly 60 percent of the votes of the delegates at the New Mexico GOP’s February pre-nominating convention, far outpolling Muller-Aragon’s 7.3 percent in a five-candidate field.
Thornton, an African-American who has lived in New Mexico for over 40 years, told The Epoch Times that, despite his big convention win, his candidacy has been “ignored” by the state’s media.
“For those that don’t know me, I’m a black constitutional conservative Republican who lives by my principles of honesty, integrity, and loyalty. I am pro-gun, pro-life, pro-constitution, and a Christian,” he said.
Polls open Tuesday in New Mexico at 7 a.m. and close at 7 p.m.
