Note: This newsletter was written prior to the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump on Saturday.
Hello fellow political junkies!
While most people were enjoying the Fourth of July last weekend, some Democratic elected officials spoke about getting President Joe Biden to step down from his re-election bid citing his poor performance in his debate with former president Donald Trump in late June.
However, as the week progressed, more and more Democrat elected officials, including New Mexico Senator Martin Heinrich, began backing Biden to stay in the race.
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It feels like the home team crashed and burned on Friday night so everyone wanted someone’s head on Monday and now that the next game approaches, team spirit appears to have lifted.
As the week progressed, discussions surfaced about why Biden was being asked to leave the race when his opponent, a convicted felon, was not.
The Poynter Institute, a non-profit journalism professional development group, published an article where they discuss the question of why Trump is not being asked to step down, considering his behaviors and criminal convictions.
“Simply asking the same question of Trump that many are asking of Biden creates a false equivalency,” Poynter Senior Media Writer Tom Jones said in his July 10 Poynter Report. “It suggests that Trump’s threats and menace are in the same ballpark as Biden’s vitality and acumen. It suggests that Trump and Biden pose similar hazards, and even those who desperately want Biden to walk away wouldn’t and shouldn’t mean to suggest that.”
Also published on July 10 was an article in The Atlantic by Tim Alberta about the Trump campaign’s plan for a “landslide win” against Biden. With the caveat that they were always planning to go against Biden and not someone else.
“Biden quitting the race would necessitate a dramatic reset—not just for the Democratic Party, but for Trump’s campaign,” the story states.
The Trump Campaign told Alberta that “any Democratic replacement would inherit the president’s deficiencies; that whether it’s Vice President Kamala Harris or California Governor Gavin Newsom or anyone else, Trump’s blueprint for victory would remain essentially unchanged. But they know that’s not true. They know their campaign has been engineered in every way—from the voters they target to the viral memes they create—to defeat Biden. And privately, they are all but praying that he remains their opponent.”
One thing many of us have learned, especially since the COVID-19 pandemic, is that whatever will happen will happen and it’s up to us, the electorate, to decide at the polls.
While the sand goes pit-pat in the hourglass on the way to the general election which is less than four months away, all we really know is that whatever happens, it will be annoying.
Poll Positions
As to the election, The Economist/YouGov poll that was released on July 10 shows that people don’t like either Biden or Trump very much.
Biden is viewed by 37 percent of respondents favorably to 60 percent unfavorably to Trump’s 41 percent favorable view to 56 percent unfavorable, based on the poll.
Trump shows a three percent edge (or is that pebble) above Biden in an election poll of likely voters in the YouGov poll.
As to enthusiasm, 68 percent of Biden supporters expect “their preferred candidate” to win compared with 92 percent of Trump’s supporters.
“Among all Americans, 48 percent expect a Trump victory in November, while 29 percent expect Biden to win — the largest Trump advantage on this question since it was first asked in April 2023,” the poll states.
Meanwhile on the Hill
- Sen. Martin Heinrich and Sen. Ben Ray Luján asked for $36.9 million for New Mexico’s military installations and veterans programs in the Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies Fiscal Year 2025 Appropriations Bill which passed the Senate Appropriations Committee last week.
- Heinrich and Luján also asked for $15 million in investments for 18 local projects across New Mexico in the Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Fiscal Year 2025 Appropriations Bill.
Upcoming interim committee meetings
Interim Legislative Finance Committee will meet July 15-17 at New Mexico Tech-Joseph A. Fidel Center in Socorro.
Interim Courts, Corrections and Justice Committee July 15-17 in Room 307 at the State Capital.
For more information about interim committee meetings, visit nmlegis.gov and click the Committees tab at the top of the screen.
Special Session Watch
A very special episode of the New Mexico Legislature will begin Thursday in which the legislature is expected to hear bills related to public safety and gun laws.
The NM Political Report will be there to see what happens.
2024 General Election
The New Mexico General Election is Nov. 5.
The Election Results 2024 will be posted to the New Mexico Secretary of State’s Office website after polls close at 7 p.m. on Nov. 5. It currently lists the 2024 Primary results.
For more information about elections contact your local county clerk’s office which can also help you check on or update your voter registration, a process that can also be done online at NMVote.org.
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