A lot has been made of last Tuesday’s turnout. Many campaigns and prognosticators were predicting a low turnout – some were praying for one. As it turns out (pardon the turn of phrase), last night’s primary election turnout was higher than 2006 and lower than 2002.
More than 257,000 total votes were cast in Tuesday’s election, according to unofficial returns on the secretary of state’s web site.
That’s almost 62,000 more votes than in the 2006 gubernatorial primary, when 22 percent of eligible Republicans and Democrats participated.
(Albuquerque Journal)Turnout was down from the 2002 gubernatorial primary, when 34 percent of eligible voters cast ballots.
(Albuquerque Journal)
But there’s more to the story of turnout than the typical (and regrettable) display of voter apathy. Last night’s election results show surprising weakness in Diane Denish’s Democrat support. Counting the 2,650 votes cast for write-in candidate Billy J. Driggs, there were 15,084 fewer votes cast in the Democratic gubernatorial primary than cast in the Democratic lieutenant governor race. That’s roughly 12% fewer votes cast for governor than for lieutenant governor. (View the statewide 2010 unofficial primary results here.)
You may be thinking… “Diane Denish was unopposed so it makes sense that she’d end up with an under vote.” Let’s take a look at the last election where an “unopposed” Democrat ran for governor. In 2006, Governor Bill Richardson topped the ticket for the Ds. In that race there 108,108 votes cast for either Bill Richardson or write-in Anselmo A. Chavez. There were 107,556 votes cast for Lt. Governor Diane Denish – a difference of 552 votes in favor of the gubernatorial contest. Richardson lost less than 1% to the write-in and actually pulled more votes than Denish. (View the 2006 primary results here.)
Tuesday, 15,084 Democrats who were involved enough to vote in a primary voted for a lieutenant governor candidate and specifically did not vote for Diane Denish. These are primary voters who are far more likely to vote the party line yet over 15,000 of them didn’t vote for Diane. In fact, sources downtown indicate that quite a few D ballots carried names like Martinez, Domenici, Arnold-Jones, Weh, and Turner as write-ins.
When you couple apparent Democrat disdain for Diane with an anemic 28% turnout of the party faithful, it’s looking more and more like New Mexico Democrats have trouble at the top of their ticket and Denish knows it. The light guv immediately went on the offensive against the Republican nominee in her primary acceptance speech. A candidate – especially a well known candidate – never attacks an opponent unless they’re a threat. Martinez’ convincing primary victory is evidence that Diane should be afraid… very afraid.
Tuesday’s poor performance could also spell trouble for down ballot Ds who need a strong top of the ticket candidate to drive turnout. There won’t be an Obama or even a Richardson on November’s ballot and Ds can’t count on Teague, Heinrich, or Ben Ray, Jr. to drive turnout. It will be up to Di to create coattails and if Tuesday is any indication, she may not be wearing a coat.
But, before anyone starts measuring the drapes on the 4th floor, Denish is a formidable opponent equipped with a ton of campaign cash. Martinez will have to do some intense fundraising to catch up and run a determined campaign lest she snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
The five Republican gubernatorial candidates delivered a 34% Republican turnout. If Martinez runs a solid race and the party can come together behind their nominee, Denish and down ballot Ds may very well find themselves in a precarious position this fall.