NM’s Dem Primary will be trumpier than the GOP’s…You’re welcome.
Sent to newspapers 5/1/2026
2026 primary: Already the independents are making themselves felt
Early voting in the county clerk’s office begins on Tuesday, May 5. This is the first New Mexico primary where independents can request a major party ballot. And it sure looks to me like this has affected the pre-primary polls.
First, let’s look at voter registration year-over-year. Since April 2025, 80,346 new voters have registered in New Mexico. 84 percent of them, or more than 67,000, have declined to join a major party, or are independents. The Democratic Party has only grown by 3,176 new voters, or .55%. The Republican Party has done more than three times as well! The GOP grew its voter base by a whopping two percent, or 8,567 voters. Republicans posted impressive numbers in Doña Ana County and Luna County, picking up nearly a thousand new voters in Doña Ana and 160 in Luna.
But they lag far behind the independents who grew their numbers by 17.8 percent and made gains in nearly every county. Democrats are losing ground faster than Republicans, who made a concerted effort and saw a brief surge in 2024 in conjunction with the presidential election, but that tide is going out and taking White House approval ratings with it.
Polling shows that New Mexico independents skew moderate and favor Democrats in the voting booth, particularly on issues of healthcare, education funding and social programs. I’ll come back to that in a moment.
Independents voting in the primary force primary candidates away from the ultra-orthodox partisan pass/fail tests we have seen in the past, particularly on the Republican side. In the last seven election cycles, these have included the Second Amendment and abortion – even in local races – for GOP candidates. In the last four, MAGA/Trump was tacked on. Local and state issues like water, education, and the economy could never emerge past these national emotional triggers.
I think this is why the latest poll numbers are so…unfocused. None of the national emotional blackmail of the last 14 or so years has come up. This is a New Mexico primary about New Mexico. Former Rio Rancho Mayor Gregg Hull emerged as the Republican frontrunner with just 21 percent of respondents selecting him. Former state health secretary Duke Rodriguez came in second with 10 percent, and businessman Doug Turner finished in a virtual tie with Rodriguez with nine percent. Fully 60 percent of GOP voters polled were undecided.
Without the easy buttons of who is the loudest on guns, babies, or Trump, Republican voters have to weigh the issues that impact the state the most: our dismal education system, our stagnant economy, and our perilous water situation. Independent voters will definitely tip the scale here.
Where Trump and MAGA have all but disappeared from the GOP primary, they are major characters, along with the late Jeffrey Epstein, in the Democratic primary. Former Interior Secretary Deb Haaland broke the 50 percent mark in the mostly highly regarded in-state poll (Brian Sanderoff’s Research & Polling, Inc.), 22 points ahead of Bernalillo County District Attorney Sam Bregman.
Bregman has been making a splash with his anti-ICE ads and now is hitting hard at Haaland with allegations that she was on a flight on Epstein’s plane to a D.C. fundraiser. With five times more in donations than her opponent, Haaland is running ads hitting back that Bregman is attacking her because he is taking donations from MAGA supporters.
I’m not going to lie. I’m enjoying the Democrats resorting to a good old GOP-style slugfest after suffering through years of them on my side of the aisle. The Republican primaries of the last decade-plus definitely helped drive me to the decline-to-state crowd. But, yeah, in this crazy, sideways year, the Democrats are having a Trumpier primary than the GOP and I am so here for it. Good luck, Deb. Good luck, Sam. Welcome to our world!
At the time of the last campaign filing report, Bregman, while trailing Haaland significantly, had more than twice as much money as any of the Republicans. In earlier governors’ races this cycle, we have seen candidates with less money take the win. The major unknown is the behavior of the largest new block of voters: the 378,000-strong independents who make up nearly 27% of the electorate. In the primary, what ballot will they even ask for?
The major parties like data and to predict behavior. Independents throw this off. The GOP relied for years on the litmus test model in their primaries to drive the strongest partisans to the voting booth. It’s easy, and lazy. I saw one post on social media today from a state representative that referred to me and my fellow independents’ voting in primaries as “outside interference.” That’s a subtle start to declaring a primary with independents voting in it as invalid.
Not today, Satan.
Allow me to remind him and other hyper partisans that our primaries are taxpayer-funded. If a partisan political party wishes to fund its own primary, then it could be appropriate to ban independent voters. However, that act itself would be hard to justify on the premise of voter suppression.
More than a quarter of New Mexico voters have jettisoned a political party. It’s a strong statement, and it’s already improved Republican primaries. Let’s hope the Democrats can catch up by 2028.
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.