Nick Seibel, publisher and editor of the Silver City Daily Press, covers top stories each week on the Silver City Report. This week we hear about Grant County election results, how Grant County compared to the rest of the state in voting and how the county clerk's office handled a power outage.
Susan Morée:
So Nick, yesterday's primary results. Let's talk about what happened in Grant County.
Nick Seibel:
Yeah, it's weird because when you look at the statewide races and what the margins were in those races, Grant County voters were actually eerily right on track with the voters across New Mexico in almost all cases, except for that Republican primary for governor. Of course, Greg Hull was projected as the winner statewide, but in Grant County, 45% of Republican voters picked Doug Turner as their preferred candidate. So, that was interesting. Doug Turner really caught on with the folks who decided to vote in the Republican primary here this year.
Susan Morée:
But otherwise, Grant County looked like the rest of New Mexico voters in terms of how they voted, right?
Nick Seibel:
Yeah, from everything from the race for land commissioner to the huge margin for Deb Haaland in the Democratic gubernatorial primary there. She picked up 81% of the vote here in Grant County, and that was even bigger than her statewide margin, which as of last night was about 73% in that area. So really kind of tracked along with what voters statewide were doing.
Susan Morée:
Okay. And Grant County Commission District 1, who won?
Nick Seibel:
Yeah, the only two local primary elections were both for the Democratic Party, and they were both for Grant County Commission seats. One of them, the District 1 seat, was an open seat. The incumbent termed out there, and there were five folks who had filed to run, and really sort of seemed like anyone's race, but JennyFerranti ended up kind of running away with that. She picked up 40% of the total vote in that five-way race, which is a pretty big margin. She picked up more than double the number of votes of her closest challenger, so a big margin of victory for her there, all things considered. In the District 2 primary, the incumbent, Eloy Medina, looks like he's headed for re-election. He picked up about 60% of the vote over COBRE School Board member Gilbert Diaz-Guadiana. Both of those commission candidates are almost certain to be on the county commission come January because there were no Republican candidates who filed for either one of those seats. Of course, there's always a possibility here in the next couple of weeks that there could be an independent filing, but that seems unlikely. So very sort of old Grant County there where for many, many decades sort of the winner of the Democratic primary was essentially the winner of the whole thing.
Susan Morée:
I interviewed all of the candidates for District 1 and District 2 running for the Grant County Commission seats. Do you think that Jenny Ferranti’s win says something about Grant County's interest in what's happening with the attempts to mine around Pinos Altos? Because that was a major reason why she said she was running.
Nick Seibel:
Yeah, it was interesting. I mean, four of those five candidates were all from Grant County, you know, born and raised here in the community. And a number of them actually spoke up about sort of the expansion of mining into the Gila. A lot of concern about that, and a couple of candidates made it a big part of their platform. Ferranti really picked up a lot of endorsements, a lot of support. A couple of former county commissioners came out and supported her. She was really just kind of everywhere when it came to the campaign. I think that had a lot to do with it, really, she really made the most of the campaign.
Susan Morée:
Okay. And county clerks, where would we be without them? They are so hardworking. Tell us about the Grant County clerks.
Nick Seibel:
Well, and of course, they're, you know, county clerks, election officials always have all their contingency plans. What if something goes wrong? And the county clerks in Grant County, really got to try out some of those contingency plans. About 4:10 this afternoon, the power went out at the Grant County Administration Building, which not only does it house the clerk's office, but one of the voter convenience centers, one of the polling locations in Grant County. But they were ready to go. They had generators on standby and strung some extension cords into the polling location, and in five minutes or so, they were back up and running, even though the power was out for 30 minutes or so. The clerk kind of told us that they didn't lose a single voter, that there were a few people waiting to vote, and they just hung around until things were up and running. So it definitely made things a little interesting, and otherwise, it was a pretty uneventful race, with about a 26% voter turnout in Grant County for yesterday's primary.
Susan Morée:
Where can readers find these stories?
Nick Seibel:
Yeah, find full election results and much more at scdailypress.com.
