If one more person tells me NM is a blue state…
Sent to newspapers 6/12/2026; thanks to Silver City Daily Press Publisher and Editor Nick Seibel for a key catch regarding legislative races in the southwest part of the state!
New Mexico needs to reject the label of blue or red
I did a lot of broadcast media this week in the aftermath of the primary. And at some point in each interview someone brought up the idea that “New Mexico is a blue state.” I sort of winced.
That’s because it’s just not as simple as the party in power perfectly reflecting the desires of the people. There are many layers that contribute to how we got here. And if you look at the conditions impacting America and New Mexico, it’s not a clean-cut, absolutely partisan answer.
New Mexico has seen its political landscape scraped since 2018 to favor Democrats, and more progressive Democrats at that. There are three primary factors here: profound dysfunction within the Republican Party of New Mexico (RPNM) along with a sweeping gerrymander following the 2020 census, and the consistent primarying of moderate Democrats.
Narrow control and a focus on tribalism rather than recruiting candidates has hobbled RPNM. Loyalty to a controlling clique and a focus on southeastern New Mexico at the expense of the Albuquerque Metro has cost the Republicans legislative seats and statewide races. There’s one spot of growth for the GOP in this period: the Southwest. Grant, Luna, and Hidalgo Counties quietly flipped to red in the Legislature, joining Catron, Sierra and Socorro Counties.
Other than that, the GOP has lost nearly all the Albuquerque seats in the Legislature and hasn’t held a statewide office in eight years. Albuquerque has not had a Republican mayor since 2017, and Las Cruces, the second largest city, has not had one since 2007. In that time, with strong Democratic strong majorities in the state House and Senate, and Democrats holding every statewide office and the Governor’s office, and Democrats having rewritten congressional and state district maps, is New Mexico better off?
Well, no. We are not. By any number of measures. Here are a few to consider.
New Mexico has the fifth highest number of residents living below the poverty rate, at 16.4 percent. We have the highest number of SNAP recipients – people receiving food stamps – at 21.9 percent. That’s one out of five New Mexicans receiving food assistance. We have the 13th highest level of homelessness per capita with numbers rising some 24% since 2023, more than 83% in Albuquerque. That’s despite more than half a billion dollars being spent to address this issue.
Our children are being failed in ways besides poverty. New Mexico ranks dead last in math and reading proficiency. 14% of our eighth graders are proficient in math, and 19% are proficient in reading. We rank 49th for high school graduation rate. Nearly one out of four New Mexican high school students do not finish. Perhaps instead of universal free college tuition we should be teaching our children to read and write.
It is far more grim for our state’s most vulnerable children. 14 children in the last two years have died in state custody with the Child, Youth and Families Department (CYFD), nine of them in 2025 alone.
Obviously, this is criminal. And crime continues to plague our state. According to the FBI’s latest statistics, New Mexico leads the nation for property crime and is second for violent crime.
So if we are a blue state, it’s not serving us well. But I’d hesitate before demanding a full-on red flip.
Inflation just passed its highest rate in three years – 4.2 percent – driven by fuel prices. Our Republican President, confronted with these numbers this week, said, “I love the inflation,” and then bloviated into more incoherent talking points about the war with Iran he is making up as he goes along (pro tip: announcing strikes in advance is not the way to gain asymmetric advantage over your enemy).
This is the same administration that will be hosting a UFC fight on the White House lawn this weekend; which has directed the Pentagon to funnel hundreds of millions (perhaps over a billion by now) of dollars into companies in which the President’s sons are investors; which is pulling millions of barrels of oil out of Venezuela and depositing the proceeds into a Qatari bank account with no records; which caused the cessation of intelligence gathering via Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Section 702 by nominating a fully unqualified homebuilder-turned-political-enforcer as Director of National Intelligence.
That’s just the tip of the iceberg. This week’s YouGov polling shows the issues most important to Americans this week are: inflation, the economy, healthcare, and foreign policy (i.e. the war). 63% of Americans disapprove of how Donald Trump is handling the economy. 67% disapprove of how he has handled negotiations with Iran; 92% expect the war to last at least another month.
What is a New Mexican to do? Republicans at the Federal level offer no solutions that we like. Our Democrat-run state is tanking.
It’s a tough lift for us voters in 2026. We are going to have to do research. We know what we care about: our children, our homes, our health, and our livelihood. We must ask our candidates where they stand. If they are incumbents, we must look at their voting record.
(Insider tip: if you live in the southwest part of the state, just support your incumbent GOP legislators. They are awesome.)
You might check out the Forward Party. This is a new group, and they don’t have candidates for many races, but they are endorsing moderates. If you want a solution that isn’t tied to the partisan orthodoxies on the right or left, look for the Forward Party-endorsed candidates.
Most importantly, don’t fall for labels. We deserve better than what either side is offering right now.
Merritt Hamilton Allen is a PR 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.