New Mexico Still "Solidly Democratic"

This is an article originally published 2/1/10 on the NM Independent. It is written by Matthew Reichbach.

A recent poll shows that although the Republican Party has made a small gain in partisanship figures, New Mexico still remains one of the states with the most self-identified Democrats. New Mexico,Gallup finds, is one of 23 states (plus the District of Columbia) “that can be classified as solidly Democratic.”

The numbers include Independents who say they lean toward either the Democratic or Republican Party.

The Democratic advantage in party identification dropped from 14 percent to 13 percent. This ranks New Mexico as the 16th most-Democratic leaning state. Four of the top five states are from New England (the fifth is Hawaii).

In the 2008 elections, the entire party’s Congressional delegation was Democratic for the first time, thanks to the retirement of longtime Republican Senator Pete Domenici and the resulting fallout.

The results came from all the polling conducted by Gallup in 2009.

According to Gallup, “The margin of error for most states is ±2 percentage points, but is as high as ±4 percentage points for Delaware, Hawaii, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, and the District of Columbia.”