For many decades, the Albuquerque Journal has commissioned polls for general elections in New Mexico. The newspaper retains as its exclusive pollster the polling firm Research & Polling. Founded in 1986 by its President and CEO Brian Sanderoff, Research & Polling Inc. is New Mexico’s largest full-service market research and public opinion research company. The company today serves a wide variety of prominent national and New Mexico clients. https://www.rpinc.com/ When it comes to New Mexico politics. Research & Polling Inc is considered the gold standard of political polls because of its lengthy history of accuracy.
This year’s poll was conducted from September 6 to September 13 and excluded the evening of September 10 due to the presidential debate. The 2024 general election year poll included polling on the top issues including crime, the economy, education, border security and gun control. The poll included the race for the Presidency, the United States Senate and on Governor Michelle Lujan’s job approval rating mid term to her second full 4 year term.
During the week of September 16 to September 22 the Albuquerque Journal ran front page articles reporting on the results of the poll. This blog article is an edited an quoted summary of the articles and poll results on the Presidential election, the election for United States Senator and on Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham’s job approvale rating followed by the links to the quoted articles in full relied upon.
PRESIDENTIAL POLL
Democrat Vice President Kamala Harris has a sizeable lead over Republican Donald Trump in this year’s presidential race in New Mexico. According to the Journal Poll, 49% of registered, likely voters surveyed said they planned to vote for Vice President Harris, while 39% said they planned to support former President DonaldTrump while 3% said they would vote for independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who suspended his campaign last month but is still on New Mexico’s ballot. Of the remaining voters surveyed, roughly 7% said they had not yet decided who they would vote for in the November 5 general election.
In the 2020 election, President Biden defeated Trump in New Mexico by nearly 11% points or about 100,000 votes. Brian Sanderoff, the president of Research & Polling Inc., which conducted the poll, said the Harris-Trump poll results suggest the likelihood of a similar outcome to 2020.
“Male voters in New Mexico were nearly split between Trump and Harris while female voters were far more likely to support Harris than Trump. Mirroring the national trend, there was a significant divide by education level, as voters with a college or graduate degree said they would vote for Harris by a nearly 2-to-1 margin. In contrast, voters without a college degree were more likely to support Trump.”
“The Journal Poll found voters in the Albuquerque metro area and the traditional Democratic stronghold of northern New Mexico were much more likely to support Harris than Trump. Trump enjoyed a nearly 2-to-1 advantage over Harris in the state’s more conservative east side, but that is not enough to offset the vice president’s edge in New Mexico’s more populous areas of Albuquerque, Las Cruces and Santa Fe.”
“The poll found Anglo voters were nearly split between the two leading presidential candidates, while Hispanic voters tended to favor Harris. However, Trump’s 36% support level among Hispanics was higher than some Republican candidates have received in recent New Mexico statewide elections.
Another trouble spot for Trump could be his performance among self-described moderate voters. Among such voters, 68% said they planned to vote for Harris, while 20% said they intended to vote for Trump.”
The link to the cited and quoted Albuquerque Journal news article is here:
UNITED STATES SENATE RACE
According to the Journal Poll, incumbent Senior Senator Democrat Martin Heinrich has a 12% lead over Republican Nella Domenici in the race for U.S. Senate. Heinrich is running for his third term representing New Mexico. This is Domenici’s first run for public office.
“Heinrich garnered 50% of the registered, likely voters surveyed in the Journal poll while Domenici trails behind him with 38% saying they would vote for her. With rounded-off numbers, there were still 9% undecided and 4% who said they would vote for neither candidate. Heinrich has strong support from progressives, and Domenici has strong support from conservatives, but self-described moderates were also more likely to say they would cast a ballot for Heinrich.”
Heinrich and Domenici have unleashed a barrage of negative attack ads against each other. Domenici has tried to tie Heinrich to the opioid crisis, dramatic increases in violent crime, a failing economy and proclaim that Heinrich has accomplished nothing for New Mexico in his 20 years as an elected official. Heinrich has framed Domenici as an outsider and has claimed she has been recruited by Senate Minority leader Mitch McConnel and the MAGA Senate to enact a national abortion ban. One Heinrich attack ad claims a vote for Domenici is “a vote for a national abortion ban” and a Domenici ads have responded she would vote against such a ban.
“Although Domenici is the female candidate, she has much lower support than Heinrich among female voters. The poll found that Heinrich had a 22-point lead with women voters, with 55% of women supporting Heinrich compared to 33% supporting Domenici. Support for each candidate among male voters was close to a tie, with Heinrich ahead by 2 points.”
The link to the cited and quoted Albuquerque Journal story is here:
GOVERNOR MLG’S APPROVAL RATING TAKES A HIT
Governor Michell Lujan Grisham is term limited and has two years left in office.
According to the poll, 45% of registered, likely voters surveyed said they approved of the job Lujan Grisham was doing as governor which is down 14% from 59% in September 2020, during the peak of COVID-19.The new poll also found that roughly 44% of voters said they disapproved of the Democratic governor’s job performance, with the remaining voters unsure or declining to state their opinion.
The Journal Poll found varying levels of support for the governor’s job performance around New Mexico. Sanderoff said this:
“The state’s equally divided on the governor’s job performance, and two of the state’s regions are as well”.
“In the Albuquerque Metro area, which has increasingly skewed Democratic in recent years, 48% of voters surveyed said they approved of Lujan Grisham’s job performance, while 42% expressed disapproval.
Voters’ views were similarly divided in northwest New Mexico, which encompassed both part of the Navajo Nation and more conservative-leaning Farmington area.
Lujan Grisham retained strong voter approval in the traditional Democratic stronghold of northern New Mexico, while voters in eastern New Mexico expressed disapproval by a more than 2-to-1 margin.
The governor also enjoyed more support among female voters than male voters, with 51% of women surveyed expressing support for Lujan Grisham’s job performance compared to just 40% of men.
Lujan Grisham’s current approval rating is similar to but slightly higher than that of her predecessor, Republican ex-Gov. Susana Martinez, at the same point in her tenure. Martinez had an approval rating of 42% in October 2016, and her support level continued to decline prior to her leaving office at the end of 2018.
In addition to Martinez, Sanderoff pointed out that former governors Bill Richardson, a Democrat, and Gary Johnson, a Republican-turned-Libertarian, also saw their approval ratings decline during their final years in office.”
THE LUJAN GRISHAM RECORD
Lujan Grisham is a former three-term congresswoman representing the Albuquerque area. She was elected governor in 2018 and won reelection in 2022. Her tenure was marked by the COVID-19 pandemic that saw New Mexico record one of the nation’s highest death rates per capita, and by record-high state revenue levels generated in large part by surging oil production in southeast New Mexico’s Permian Basin.
The increase is state revenue has allowed Lujan Grisham to sign bills increasing New Mexico starting teacher pay, expanding financial assistance to college students and providing state taxpayers with tax rebates.
The governor has increasingly clashed with members of her own party in the Legislature on crime issues. A special session called by the governor in July ended in a matter of hours with lawmakers not even debating her crime-focused agenda. Lujan Grisham responded by saying legislators should be “embarrassed” by their actions, but top-ranking lawmakers have pushed back by questioning the legality of the governor’s bills and whether they would have actually reduced crime rates.
Lujan Grisham was vetted for a possible Cabinet post in President Joe Biden’s administration in 2020, but ultimately decided to remain in New Mexico. Lujan Grisham has very close personal ties to Vice President Kamala Harris, who presided over the Governor’s wedding, and she spoke at the 2024 Democratic National Convention and was a key spokesperson for the Vice Presidents campaign during the convention. Lujan Grisham is also on the national committee to elect Harris. Speculation is widespread in New Mexico that Governor Lujan Grisham will be appointed to a cabinet position should Harris win the presidency and step down mid term and with Luetenant Governor Howie Morales becoming Governor for two years.
COMMENTARY AND ANALYSIS
The Journal poll is based on a statewide random sample of 532 voters who cast ballots in the 2020 and/or 2022 general election, and a sample of adults who registered to vote since December 2022 and who said they are likely to vote in the upcoming election. The sample was stratified by race and county and weighted by age, education level, and party affiliation based on traditional voting patterns in New Mexico general elections, to ensure a more representative sample. The voter sample has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.2% percentage points. The margin of error grows for subsamples. All interviews were conducted by live, professional interviewers, based in Albuquerque, with multiple callbacks to households that did not initially answer the phone.
Whenever polls such as this are released, the general voting public and candidates themselves tend to dismiss them saying the poll is not accurate because so few are interviewed. Like it or not, the public still view them with intense interest much like when people slow down as they pass a car wreck. When it comes to the major issues facing New Mexico voters, the Albuquerque Journal poll provides a solid reflection of what is going on in voters’ minds.
The 2024 general election is on November 5, a mere 6 weeks away. Given the track record and reputation for accuracy of Research and Polling, its more likely than not the Vice President Kamal Harris will prevail in New Mexico over former President Donald Trump. It also likely that Democrat Senior Senator Martin Heinrich will prevail over Republican Nella Domenici. Harris has a 10% lead over Trump while Heinrich has a 12% lead over Domenici and such leads at this point in time can be considered insurmountable.
When it comes to Governor Michelle Lujan, her future in New Mexico in all likelihood is tied to the fate of Vice President Kamala Harris an if she becomes President. If the Governor is in fact given the opportunity to move on to a Cabinet position under Kamala Harris, it likely she will move on preferring not to deal with antagonistic legislature for two years.
The link to a related blog article on issues is here: