For those who wondered, in the race to replace former Rep Deb Haaland (D-NM) after her move to Secretary of Interior, the winner is Melanie Stansbury (D-NM).
On Tuesday, Democratic state Rep. Melanie Stansbury easily defeated Republican state Sen. Mark Moores by 25 percentage points in a special House election in New Mexico for Interior Secretary Deb Haaland’s old seat. [FiveThirtyEight]
This suggests that the observed thesis of her opponent, Mark Moores (R-NM), that Stansbury backed weakening law enforcement & punishment, aka fear-mongering, did not prove effective. Still, it’s worth considering the alternative hypothesis that independents are not willing to trust Republicans regardless of their opponents, but as FiveThirtyEight points out that this is the fourth special election of the cycle, and that, if anything, traditional margins are exaggerated in both directions, it’s probably more wishful thinking. The New Mexico district is heavily Democratic and voted hat way. The Republican tactic didn’t work in a Democratic district. It tends to say fear-mongering is ineffective, at least in New Mexico’s liberal districts, but generalizing to competitive districts nation-wide is probably premature.
