Sent to newspapers 10/30/2026
Are you a one- or two-issue voter?
I think just about everyone has made up their mind about the 2026 election. And it really boiled down to a maximum of three issues at the national and state levels.
If you want simply want to vote against corruption, in this state you likely have to split your ballot. I understand rejecting the GOP at the Federal level; in a shocking report from The New York Times, we learned last week that the President’s former personal lawyer, Alina Habba Mildon, set up a $50 million employment deal with a Venezuelan billionaire while she was still acting U.S. Attorney for New Jersey. After she started working for the shell firm on Jan. 1, the billionaire, facing campaign finance fraud charges, received a full presidential pardon.
The coda to this story? The President feels that Mildon’s deal was too big and she should make a substantial donation to the Presidential Library Fund. I can’t make this up. It’s not the selling of the pardon request – it’s that he didn’t get his cut.
At the same time the conflicts of interest permeating the Democratic caucus in the Legislature and the continuous scandals that keep erupting (Joseph Martinez, Andrea Romero, George Muñoz – that’s just this summer) also disqualify the Democrats from continuing to control the Legislature.
If you want more nuance than that, you can choose the war with Iran and the health care crisis in New Mexico and wind up with much the same outcome. The war with Iran, now referred to officially by the Pentagon as “overseas operations,” has been expensive, ineffective strategically, regionally disastrous, and economically devastating.
There’s been a lot of talk about the ineptness of the Republican Party of New Mexico. Certainly, with regard to statewide candidate recruitment, and even keeping a party chair in office, RPNM has fallen short. Yet the New Mexico Democratic Party has not exactly cloaked itself in glory.
This election cycle we have seen Democratic legislative candidates replaced after winning their primaries. We see an open play by the trial lawyers’ lobby to elect another of their own to office, where two of the most prosperous medical malpractice lawyers in the state not only hold office, they chair powerful Senate committees. And the astonishing narrative is that malpractice reform, which finally passed this year, might not be such a great idea.
Tell that to the physicians paying tens of thousands of dollars a year more than in nearly any other state in malpractice insurance premiums to practice medicine here. They’ll be in Arizona or Texas by the next election.
So if you prefer, become a two-issue voter: Vote against the war. Vote to save healthcare in New Mexico. Which still means splitting your ballot.
Nationally and statewide, early voting turnout is higher than 2022, and most states show greater Democratic turnout. In the key swing states for the House and Senate races to control Congress, no numbers point to anything conclusive yet.
I was talking last year with a good friend who does a lot of focus groups. She spoke to me about a group she conducted with young people (under 35) who were primarily Hispanic or Native American. She was distressed because they felt the issues that our generation and older ones spoke about were hard for them to understand, so they tuned out, and usually didn’t vote.
I think about that a lot. And I don’t know how to put it more simply: using the government for your own private gain is not okay. Wasting the military’s resources and wrecking decades of alliances and regional stability while imperiling global shipping lanes is not okay. And manipulating state law for your own wealth and for special interests at the expense of our families’ access to healthcare is definitely not okay.
This makes voting more complex and more time consuming than you might like. However, voting is the most basic and powerful role we all play in our government.
With that thought, I will close with two quotes, made about 2,250 years apart. The first is from Plato, student of Socrates and teacher of Aristotle. He passed on a career in politics after the government tried Socrates and sentenced him to death: “One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.”
The second is from Susan B. Anthony who devoted her life to some of the most radical American causes of the 19th century: ending slavery and voting rights for women: “Someone struggled for your right to vote. Use it.”
Merritt Hamilton Allen is an executive and former Navy officer. She appeared regularly as a panelist on NM PBS and is a frequent guest on News Radio KKOB. A Republican for 36 years, she became an independent upon reading the 2024 Republican platform. She lives amicably with her Democratic husband north of I-40 where they run one head of dog, and one of cat. She can be reached at merritt@merrittocracy.news.