ALONG I-25 IN NEW MEXICO — They call this place the Land of Enchantment, but it is also a land of pueblos and wineries, hot springs and oil wells, old-time ranchers and new-age jewelers, Democrats in the north, Republicans in the south and independent-minded folks who vote Libertarian or Green scattered among straw-colored prairies and desert scrub.
New Mexico offers a scant five electoral votes among the 270 needed to be elected president, and yet it has long been viewed as a key to victory. Perhaps that’s because of its propensity to reflect the nationwide popular vote, often by the slimmest of margins. Democrat Al Gore won here in 2000 by 366 votes; President Bush took the state in 2004 by a margin of 5,998.
Swing-state New Mexico’s diverse voters can go either way, “depending upon the year and the mood,” says pollster Brian Sanderoff.
They are people like Everett Chavez of the Santo Domingo Indian tribe, who helped register more than 800 voters in his little pueblo. On Nov. 4, this Barack Obama supporter plans to use an all-terrain vehicle to shuttle neighbors to the polls. His people need housing and better health care, and Chavez believes the Democrat will best deliver.
And also Sarah Wilson, a Republican who lives in liberal Santa Fe, volunteers for John McCain and plans to stand outside the polls on Election Day clutching a “Vote Pro-Life” sign.
And Susan and Dennis Downing, who run a Boy Scout museum in tiny Raton, seat of Colfax County, which went for Gore in 2000 and Bush in 2004. The Downings are quintessential swing voters in a swing county in this swing state. Registered Democrats who support both the National Rifle Association and abortion rights, they voted for Bush but this year remain undecided.
“We are the middle of the road,” says Dennis Downing. “Hundreds of thousands of people think just exactly like we think.”
A patchwork of politics
Recent polls have shown Obama ahead here, but neither side is proclaiming victory or throwing in the towel. New Mexico remains a battleground.
A drive on Interstate 25 from the Colorado border to the sliver of Texas to the state’s south explains why.
Under a gazebo in the picturesque main square of Las Vegas, N.M., a band strikes up and the strains of ranchero music fill the fall air.
The purpose of this weekday fiesta? A Democratic get-out-the-vote rally. Snapping his fingers to the music is Joseph Gonzales.
“I’m glad we’re doing this for Obama,” says Gonzales. “He needs to win, to stop that war once and for all.”
Gonzales and the 40 or so people gathered for the rally are exactly the kind of supporters Obama needs if he is to win New Mexico. They are Latino. Liberal. Empowered.
Las Vegas sits just off the interstate in northeastern New Mexico’s San Miguel County, where three-quarters of residents are Latino and registered Democrats outnumber Republicans by more than 5-to-1.
Obama will win here, but to carry the state he needs to win big — much bigger than John Kerry did four years ago, drawing just 56 percent of the state’s Latino vote to President Bush’s 44 percent. Obama visited the region in September, urging thousands of Latinos to “start actually voting your numbers … flexing your muscle.”
New Mexico’s popular governor, Bill Richardson, is Latino and himself a former presidential candidate. He endorsed Obama and has campaigned for him across the state.
“Still a chance” for McCain
But New Mexico’s Latinos, like those elsewhere, can’t always be pigeonholed by political party. Many are Roman Catholic, and that means they care about issues such as abortion.
Seventy miles down I-25, in a Santa Fe neighborhood laden with Obama- Biden signs, a banner over the entrance to St. Anne Catholic Church reads “Vote Pro-Life.”
Nina Gonzales plans to do just that. The retired budget analyst volunteers at the McCain office in Santa Fe, where a sign on the door notes that “every call could be a VOTE!” Latino, Catholic and a Republican, Gonzales knows she’s a rarity here.
“There’s a lot of Republicans, even Democrats, that aren’t coming out and saying they’re for McCain. So, I think there’s still a chance.”
“SLAMMED,” the headline read in the Albuquerque Journal four days after early voting began in Bernalillo County, New Mexico’s largest and a must win for any presidential candidate hoping to carry the state. The county tends to lean Democratic, but high turnout could mean even higher-than-usual numbers for Obama. And all 16 cubicles at a downtown Albuquerque polling place were packed on a recent weekday morning.
Heading south, the interstate traverses the Rio Grande. To the east of I-25 is the area known as “Little Texas” as much for its next-door neighbor as for its oil fields, ranching and more conservative ideology.
This is home to New Mexico’s sprawling 2nd Congressional District, where Republicans have ruled for decades. This district could push McCain over the top. Turnout among conservatives in Little Texas helped give Bush the state in 2004, and Richardson has called the district Obama’s biggest challenge.
