OPINION: Unleashed primary voters bode well for centrists, Bregman campaign

In a recent podcast of “No Doubt About It” with Mark and Krysty Ronchetti, the former Republican gubernatorial and U.S. Senate nominee asked my thoughts about the 2026 governor’s race. Being a political commentator by trade, I wasn’t hesitant, even a year ahead of the primaries.

I told Mark I was leaning toward Bernalillo County District Attorney Sam Bregman in the Democratic primary, pointing out that crime is driving the politics across New Mexico. After all, Bregman has strong credentials as a courtroom prosecutor and a decades-long civil and criminal defense attorney who has litigated some of the state’s highest-profile cases.

Bregman is also chairman of the Governor’s Organized Crime Commission, former chairman of the New Mexico Racing Commission, a former Albuquerque city councilor, a former chairman of the Democratic Party of New Mexico, has been a frequent donor to Democratic candidates over the years and, most importantly, won his first election last year, defeating former U.S. Attorney for the District of New Mexico Damon Martinez in the Democratic primary by 12.5 percentage points to remain DA after being appointed to the position by the governor in January 2023.

Mark wasn’t buying it. He predicted former U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland would be deified by progressive Democrats as potentially the nation’s first Native American woman governor, and that Haaland would win the Democratic primary by 20 points while avoiding debates with Bregman.

We both seemed to agree that Haaland is as uninspiring as a cloudy sunset, and that Bregman fills a room with his presence. But we’re worlds apart on who will prevail in the primary.

The environmental lobby will no doubt favor Haaland, but her platform of leaving everything alone and running in place hardly offers a vision of growth and prosperity for a state stuck in 50th in so many categories, not the least of which is crime, as we hold the spot as the most dangerous state in the nation, according to U.S. News & World Report.

Mark Ronchetti pointed out that Democratic candidates at the end of the political spectrum tend to defeat moderates in primaries. But in the last good statewide Democratic primary in 2022, then-Bernalillo County District Attorney Raùl Torrez repeatedly hammered then-State Auditor Brian Colón in TV ads about remarks Colón had made in one of his podcasts about defunding the police. Colón lost the Democratic primary to Torrez by almost 10,000 votes, or 7 percentage points, as Torrez claimed and held the middle ground.

On the Republican side, Ronchetti won the 2022 gubernatorial GOP primary by a landslide when he faced several more traditional Republicans, and Ronchetti racked up a 30-point win in the 2020 U.S. Senate GOP primary running against more conservative Republicans.

That said, I missed a key point in the podcast: Independents will be far more likely to vote in New Mexico’s primaries next year, and both sides of the political aisle acknowledge they are the X factor.

New Mexico has long-maintained a sizable portion of stubborn voters who do not want to be affiliated with either major political party. Of the more than 1.3 million registered voters in New Mexico as of April 30, 310,828 of them were registered no party/independent/declined to state, equating to 23.2% of the electorate. Los Alamos and Doña Ana counties had the highest percentages of independents, topping 28% in both counties.

According to the Secretary of State’s Office, the majority of new voters in 2018 registered as independent. From 1990 to 2000, independent voters in New Mexico increased by nearly three times, growing from 6.5% to 17%.

With the passage and enactment of Senate Bill 16 earlier this year, that growing bloc of independent voters will be able to choose a major party’s primary ballot in 2026 and vote for candidates within that primary, without having to declare a party affiliation.

Previously, independents could vote in primary elections, but only if they first changed their party affiliation to Democratic or Republican. Not many voters went through the hassle. Fewer than 1% of independent voters cast ballots in the state’s 2022 primaries. The landscape will be much different in 2026, with 23.2% of the electorate up for grabs by the two major party primaries.

That bodes well for candidates like Bregman, and presents problems for partisans like Haaland.

A third Democrat, former Las Cruces Mayor Ken Miyagishima, announced his gubernatorial campaign on Tuesday. But as political pollster Brian Sanderoff has noted, Las Cruces is in the El Paso media market and few outside that market know of the former four-term mayor. If anything, Miyagishima could pull votes from Haaland in southern New Mexico, as could Lt. Gov. Howie Morales of Silver City, who is also mulling a run for chief executive.

The Republican gubernatorial field at this point is lackluster. Rio Rancho Mayor Gregg Hull is set to launch his campaign next month. Retired state Supreme Court Justice Judith Nakamura, who in 2016 was the last Republican to win a statewide election, and cannabis entrepreneur and former state Cabinet secretary Duke Rodriguez are also considering GOP runs. Ronchetti told me he’s not ruling out a run for governor in 2026, but he has other things going on now, including twice-weekly podcasts.

As the Journal reported recently, the money race is already in full swing. Bregman has announced raising more than $1 million in campaign contributions since launching his campaign in April, while Haaland has received nearly $3.7 million in donations since announcing her campaign in mid-February. To put that in perspective, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham spent roughly $13 million on her successful reelection campaign in 2022, while Ronchetti spent more than $9 million.

There’s an old saying in tennis doubles: “The middle solves the riddle.” With the potential influx of 310,000 independent voters, the Democratic and Republican candidates who find that middle court will be in good stead in 2026. And I remain unconvinced a Biden administration Cabinet secretary who was not forthcoming about the former president’s mental and physical health decline can find that sweet spot.