OPINION: Vote Uballez to keep Darren White out of the run-off

If there is anyone in Albuquerque concerned about the prospects of Darren White somehow becoming mayor of our city, they have one powerful way to stop him: Vote for Alex Uballez on or before Nov. 4.

Uballez is a candidate who has earned my vote in his own right. He has a 15-year track record of protecting Albuquerque families as a prosecutor, starting with his career in the Crimes Against Children division. He’s busted 30 years of corruption in the Albuquerque Police Department’s DWI unit. And he has a bevy of plans that strike the right balance of leading with both care and consequences, as his campaign puts it.

But if you’re someone who isn’t picking your candidate based on their merits alone, but on a strategy to keep out the ex-sheriff who circumvented the law when he was last in office, who it appears hasn’t even recently lived in Albuquerque, whose business has an F rating from the Better Business Bureau, and if that wasn’t enough, who is running on a platform long on Trumpish grievance and short on any actual solutions, then Uballez is also your pick for that reason.

The latest poll that came out from Brian Sanderoff shows important numbers, the most important one being that it is extremely likely that Albuquerque’s mayoral election is headed to a runoff.

Our city has nonpartisan elections. It means that everyone runs all at once without a primary. If no candidate receives 50% plus one of the votes on Nov. 4, then the top two candidates move forward.

As the incumbent, Tim Keller, the poll shows, is very likely to be in the No. 1 seat but very far from likely from having a majority outright. Even though he has near-100% name recognition, the poll showed him at only 29% support. What that means is that we aren’t voting for our next mayor on Nov. 4; we are very likely voting for who we want in the runoff to pick our next mayor.

It might sound like a slim difference but let’s paint the picture: Mayor Keller’s 29% holds or increases. The next up was Darren White, due to the minority stake of Republicans in our city, with 16%. Imagine that one-on-one debate. Mayor Keller having to defend the immigrant-friendly ordinance, getting attacked for not being hard enough on our city’s unhoused population, and why jail and collaboration with Trump is a better solution than anything currently happening at the city. That sounds terrible.

Now imagine if we have Mayor Keller and Alex Uballez in the run-off. The debate changes completely. Who has the better plan to tackle the rising cost of housing? How can the city support young people to have career paths, and what’s the way to reduce violence that doesn’t just lock up more of our youth? Which would provide stronger defense against the unconstitutional attacks coming from Washington? We’d get to compare Mayor Keller’s executive order and Alex Uballez’s 11-point plan and ask, “How do we best protect our immigrant neighbors?”

That sounds like the conversation Albuquerque deserves to hear from the people vying to lead us for the next four years.

Until we have ranked choice voting like our neighbors in Santa Fe where we get to put our choice for mayor in order of preference, we have to think about how the runoff electoral system in our city works today.

For me, Alex has earned being my first choice. But even if he wasn’t, Alex would still be my first choice as the best way to guarantee Darren White finishes absolutely last.