From April 17 to June 19, 2021, publicly financed candidates for Mayor must gather both 3,000 signatures from registered voters within the City and 3,779 qualifying donations of $5.00 to secure $661,309.25 in public financing.
EDITORS NOTE: Privately financed candidates for Mayor must gather more than 3000 nominating petition signatures from registered voters within the City from June 8 – August 10, 2021.
PROCESSED PETITION SIGNATURES:
As of June 7, following are the updated City Clerk numbers for Processed Petition Signatures starting with the candidate with the most and ending with the least collected:
MAYOR TIM KELLER
Required Petition Signatures: 3,000
Verified Petition Signatures: 3,542
Rejected Petition Signatures: 503
Remaining Petition Signatures Needed: 0
Percentage of Verified Petition Signatures Met: 100%
SHERIFF MANNY GONZALES
Required Petition Signatures: 3,000
Verified Petition Signatures: 2,794
Rejected Petition Signatures: 442
Remaining Petition Signatures Needed: 206
Percentage of Verified Petition Signatures Met: 93%
PATRICK BEN SAIS
Required Petition Signatures: 3,000
Verified Petition Signatures: 728
Rejected Petition Signatures: 572
Remaining Petition Signatures Needed: 2, 272
Percentage of Verified Petition Signatures Met: 24%
NICHOLAS BEVINS
Nicholas Bevins has announced his withdrawal from the race and is no longer listed on the City Clerk’s tally.
https://www.facebook.com/Nicholas.D.Bevins
PROCESSED $5.00 QUALIFYING CONTRIBUTIONS
As of June 7, following are the City Clerk numbers for the $5.00 qualifying donations:
MAYOR TIM KELLER
Required $5.00 Qualifying Contributions: 3,779
Verified $5.00 Qualifying Contributions: 3,703
Rejected $5.00 Qualifying Contributions: 294
Remaining $5.00 Qualifying Contributions Needed: 76
Percentage of Verified $5.00 Qualifying Contributions: 98%
Remaining $5.00 Qualifying Contributions Needed: 129
SHERIFF MANNY GONZALES
Required $5.00 Qualifying Contributions: 3,779
Verified $5.00 Qualifying Contributions: 2,542
Rejected $5.00 Qualifying Contributions: 216
Remaining $5.00 Qualifying Contributions Needed: 1,237
Percentage of Verified $5.00 Qualifying Contributions: 67%
PATRICK BEN SAIS
Required $5.00 Qualifying Contributions: 3,779
Verified $5.00 Qualifying Contributions: 3
Rejected $5.00 Qualifying Contributions: 1
Remaining $5.00 Qualifying Contributions Needed: 3,776
Percentage of Verified $5.00 Qualifying Contributions: 0%
COMMENTARY AND ANALYSIS
Mayor Keller
It is now official that Mayor Tim Keller has made the ballot having collected the 3,000 qualify nominating petition signatures. With 12 full days remaining to collect $5.00 qualifying donations, Mayor Tim Keller is in a very good position to collect the remaining $5.00 qualifying donations. The Keller campaign has collected 3,703 required or 98% with 76 qualifying $5 donations remaining to be collected. Collecting the remaining 76 donations is highly likely and will require collecting an average of 6 to 8 donations a day for the next 12 days to ensure a cushion for rejected donations.
MANNY GONZALES
With 12 full days remaining to collect both qualifying petitions signatures and the $5.00 qualifying donations, it is likely that Sheriff Manny Gonzales will make the ballot with his 93% of the qualifying petition signatures collected. However, Gonzales may not qualify for the public finance and time is running short.
Gonzales has collected 2,794 of the required 3,000 signatures, or 93%. Gonzales needs to collect another 206 verifiable signatures, which is highly likely over a 12 full day period.
A problem for Gonzales is that his campaign is doing better but still struggling to collect the verified $5.00 Qualifying Contributions. The Gonzales campaign has collected 2,542 verified $5.00 Qualifying Contributions or 67%. Gonzales needs to collect another 1,237 donations or at least 106 plus 1 qualifying $5 donations a day for the next full 12 days which is a very daunting task.
If Gonzales does not qualify for public finance, he could declare he will seek private financing and stay in the race but it will be a major setback to his campaign. All the $5.00 qualifying donation Gonzalez has collected are donations made to the city, the Gonzales campaign can not keep them and the campaign will get no public financing. Gonzales will no doubt ramp up private donation efforts but donors will be reluctant to contribute to both him and a measured finance committee. Another impact of failure to qualify for public finance will be to dry up private contributions to the two measured finance committees set up to promote him.
Sources are also saying that Republican political operative and consultant Jay McClesky, known for his nasty slash and burn tactics, is managing the Gonzales campaign and for that reason may be trying to turn things around for the Sheriff by tapping into Republican support for Gonzales. Mc Clesky managed both former Republican Mayor Berry’s campaigns for Mayor as well as both campaigns for Republican Governor “She Who Shall Not Be Named”.
PATRICK BEN SAIS
With only 14 full days before the deadline to collect both nominating petition signatures and the $5.00 donations, Patrick Ben Sais will not likely make the ballot nor qulaify for public finance. Sais has collected only 24% of the required signatures, or 728 of the 3,000 signatures, and needs 2,272 more to secure a place on the ballot. Sais has collected a very pathetic 3 qualifying $5.00 donations when 3,779 are needed. The question at this point is when will PATRICK BEN SAIS announce that he is withdrawing from the race or will he try to stay in it and declare to be a private finance candidate and continue with gathering nominating petition signatures to get on the ballot?
THE CHALLENGES WE FACE
At this point in time it is obvious that there will be only 2 candidates for Mayor out of the 4 announced, who will make the November 2, ballot. Further, it is more likely than not that Mayor Time Keller will be the only candidate that will qualify for public finance, with Sheriff Manny Gonzales falling far short of collecting the 3,779 qualifying $5.00 donations. It’s a damn shame.
The city is facing any number of problems that are bringing it to its knees. Those problems include the coronavirus pandemic, business closures, high unemployment rates, exceptionally high violent crime and murder rates, continuing mismanagement of the Albuquerque Police Department, failed implementation of the Department of Justice reforms after a full six years and millions spent, declining revenues and gross receipts tax, increasing homeless numbers, lack of mental health programs and little to none economic development.
The city cannot afford another mayor who makes promises and offers only eternal hope for better times that result in broken campaign promises. What is needed is a mayor who actually knows what the hell they are doing, who will make the hard decisions without an eye on the next election, not make decisions only to placate their base and please only those who voted for them. What’s needed is a healthy debate on solutions and new ideas to solve our mutual problems, a debate that can happen only with a contested election.
The time frame for privately finance candidates to collect the 3,000 nominating petition signatures for Mayor begins June 8 to August 10. Gathering 3,000 nominating petition signatures is extremely easier than collecting the $5.00 qualifying donations.
Anyone one interested in running for Mayor and who has a real love for this city and is concerned about what is happening is encouraged to contact the City Clerk’s office.
The link to the city web site for candidates is here:
https://www.cabq.gov/vote/candidate-information/2021-candidates
https://campaignfinance.cabq.gov/PublicSite/SearchPages/CommitteeSearch.aspx