Legislative Candidates

204 people are running for seats in the New Mexico Legislature this year. I'm not going to stake much on the exact number because gathering the names today proved to be a tedious pain in the neck and one or two may have been missed. The short version of the tediousness is that not all of the candidate names are on the Secretary of State's Web site. One has to go to counties, only one of which, Valencia, has candidate names posted on the county Web site. Valencia County, commendably, even lists the candidate's address.

There are three important sub-numbers: 51, 28 and 23. The number of unopposed incumbents is 51. That means that 46% of our legislators don't have to compete to stay in the legislature. They are reelected by virtue of having filed for reelection. The good ones will be communicating with their constituents by going door to door and by holding and attending community meetings. The number of unopposed Democrats is 28 and the number of unopposed Republicans is 23. If the Republicans had the slightest interest in capturing control of the legislature, the ratio would be flipped.

The three important numbers are slightly different from the original post due to sloppy reading of the candidate list. The point remains the same.