Despite losing NM again, Trump got larger vote share than four years ago in 29 of state's 33 counties

SANTA FE — For the fifth consecutive election dating back to 2004, New Mexico went blue in this year’s presidential race.

But Donald Trump made big inroads in this year’s contest, picking up a larger share of the vote than he did four years ago in 29 of the state’s 33 counties.

Some of the counties with the biggest increase in Trump support were those with large Hispanic and Native American populations — Rio Arriba, Mora, McKinley and Guadalupe counties each saw 7% swings toward Trump, according to an analysis of election results.

The only counties in which Trump received less support this year than he did in 2020 were Los Alamos, Sierra and sparsely populated Union County.

The president-elect received the same level of support in one county — Roosevelt County — as he did four years ago.

Longtime New Mexico political observer Brian Sanderoff said state GOP leaders have long tried to appeal to largely Hispanic counties in northern New Mexico that skew Democrat but are more socially conservative than other left-leaning areas.

While those efforts were largely unsuccessful in previous years, he said Trump managed to win a larger share of the votes this year in some of those counties. But it’s unclear whether the election results might portend a longer-lasting trend.

”Compared to 2020, Donald Trump had significant gains not in conservative areas, but in the Democratic stronghold areas,” Sanderoff told the Journal.

At least some of Trump’s gains in New Mexico could be due to an increase in Republican voter registration and turnout statewide, as this year’s election saw about 25,000 fewer Democrats voting than four years ago and about 9,000 more Republicans.

”That partially explains Donald Trump’s improved performance in New Mexico,” said Sanderoff, who is the president of Albuquerque-based Research & Polling Inc. “A lot more Republicans voted in this year’s election, and a lot fewer Democrats did.”

But Trump also won over some Democratic voters.

In Guadalupe County, for instance, he won 48% of the votes cast in a majority Hispanic county in which 70% of registered voters are Democrats.

Trump’s gains did not lift all Republicans

Despite Trump’s gains compared with four years ago, not all New Mexico Democrats saw declining support in largely Hispanic counties.

U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich, who defeated Republican challenger Nella Domenici to win reelection to a third term, performed significantly better than Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris in many such counties.

In the northern New Mexico counties of Rio Arriba, San Miguel and Mora, Heinrich received 6 percentage points more in voter support than Harris did in the presidential race in those same counties.

He ultimately won his race by about 10 points — or about 88,000 votes — over Domenici, based on unofficial results.

Harris, in contrast, won the presidential race in New Mexico with 473,184 votes, not quite 53,000 votes more than Trump’s 420,277.

Heinrich’s campaign attributed the divergent results Thursday to the incumbent senator’s focus on basic issues like improving health care for veterans, reducing the cost of prescription drugs and expanding access to early childhood programs.

Campaign officials also cited Heinrich’s willingness to defend his record on border security, fentanyl abuse and crime, all issues perceived to be weak spots for Democrats nationally.

New Mexico’s blue streak continues

While Trump posted the best showing of any Republican presidential candidate in New Mexico since 2004, he came up short in his bid to win the state.

That means former President George W. Bush is still the last GOP candidate to win the state’s five electoral votes.

Trump vowed to win New Mexico during a campaign rally in Albuquerque just five days before Election Day that drew an estimated 7,000 people — in addition to thousands more who waited in line outside the venue for hours.

“We almost won it twice, and I believe we won it twice,” Trump said to supporters, referring to his defeats in New Mexico in 2016 and 2020.

However, his defeat this year ended up being the closest Trump has come to winning New Mexico. He lost the state by about 100,000 votes to President Joe Biden in 2020 and by roughly 65,000 votes to Hillary Clinton in 2016.

Harris, for her part, did not travel to the state during this year’s election cycle.