Primary 2026: a Steamroller to November?

Sent to newspapers 6/5/2026

Primary 2026: A Steamroller to November?

It might seem like there wasn’t a lot of news in the June 2 primary – sluggish Republican turnout, a complete rout in the Democrat gubernatorial and secretary of state races – but if you peel back the layers, you’ll find some dirt.

First, that turnout. About a quarter of registered voters showed up for this election. Fair numbers for a midterm primary. But far more Democrats showed up than Republicans, and more independents opted to vote in the Democratic Party primary than the GOP.

RPNM, this is your wakeup call. No, it wasn’t a victory that your three write-in candidates got enough votes to get on the general election ballot; it was a profound embarrassment. Fewer than 4 percent of voters casting a Republican ballot bothered to write in any of your write-in candidates’ names. Because you couldn’t be bothered to recruit or support any candidates for U.S. Senate, state auditor, or state treasurer. For shame.

Keeping your party chair in office in clear violation of your own by-laws seemed more important, I guess. Fortunately, a judge has intervened and this silliness seems to be over.

With that scandal in the news, no candidates for most statewide offices, unopposed incumbents in the few GOP legislative seats remaining, and three gubernatorial candidates who sounded largely similar to each other, most Republicans stayed home. 75 percent of them. Only 26 percent of the independent voters who voted in the primary asked for Republican ballots.

On the Democratic side, it was one of money and turnout. A third of Democrats showed up at the polls and their candidates got 75% of the independent voters. Former congresswoman and Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland had more than three times the campaign cash as Bernalillo County district attorney Sam Bregman and she spent it. Digital graphic journalist Peter St Cyr calculated her spend at $68.60 per vote – Bregman wasn’t far off at about $65 (GOP gubernatorial primary winner Gregg Hull spent $9.20 per vote).

St. Cyr raised another good question – did Haaland need to? She is immensely popular in this state, has a compelling story and her message of affordability for families is hitting at the right time. I would offer that it might not matter. Sure, she is popular and all and maybe would have won without all the spending. I rather think there is more where this came from. So why not spend it if you got it?

Haaland is one of the earliest successes of Emerge, a nationwide program crafted to prepare women to run for office on a progressive platform. I like the first part of that effort: “prepare women to run for office,” the last part less so. Emerge is funded nationally by Big Labor, PACs and the like. In New Mexico there are also trial lawyers throwing in cash. Emerge is tremendously successful here; in addition to Haaland, Congresswomen Melanie Stansbury and Teresa Leger Fernandez are graduates, as well as 20 state representatives, five state senators, two state Supreme Court justices, and seven out of ten judges on the state Court of Appeals.

While I am glad to have women leaders, I am unlikely to ever vote for Emerge graduates. If you want to know where the pro-business Democrats have gone, this is who beat them.

There is no equivalent to this on the Republican side. There’s The Leadership Institute, which has produced Mitch McConnell, Ralph Reed, and Grover Norquist (that is, Old White Guys). Then there’s Turning Point USA, which pretty much wants women to fight their local school board, then go home and churn some butter. Conservatives are missing the boat here.

With Emerge backing her, Haaland is going to get a lot more money. Her opponent in the general election, three-term Rio Rancho mayor Gregg Hull, won his three-way primary handily. Amazingly, he had the least money of anyone, with 4.6 percent of Haaland’s total cash.

The GOP gubernatorial primary was not about money; it was about how the urban and rural vote divides, and how RPNM has miscalculated every election cycle since 2017.

Hull is well known in the Albuquerque metro area. His opponents, businessman Doug Turner and former Health Secretary Duke Rodriguez, lacked that political clout. Turner had the imprimatur of the state party and was getting the associated oil and gas money; there was even a fundraiser at Mar-A-Lago on his behalf. Rodriguez was self-funding.

The vote mostly split between Hull and Turner with Hull getting the Albuquerque metro area and surrounding counties, and parts of northern New Mexico, and Turner picking up the rural south as well as the northwest gas patch. That reflects the current power structure of RPNM. For inexplicable reasons, the state party has given New Mexico’s largest city the cold shoulder.

Newsflash: you cannot win a statewide election without Albuquerque. Nor can you hope for any traction in the Legislature.

Expect Haaland to do everything possible to link Hull to Trump in the general. And here’s the thing: Hull isn’t MAGA. No one in the GOP primary was. The president wasn’t at Turner’s Mar-A-Lago shindig. I know Doug. He’s pretty centrist.

It’s not a great year to be running as a Republican for sure. But New Mexicans should look at our place among the states and remember what party’s policies have put us at the bottom of every list. This cannot be blamed on New Mexico Republicans – there aren’t enough of them in office.

The national political narrative is so constant and noisy it is difficult to shove it aside and listen to what is happening in our state. The Democrats on the ballot are going to count on this. I encourage you filter out that noise and listen to New Mexico. What we have is not working. It’s time to try something else.

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.