In a special election to fill the seat vacated by Deb Haaland, Democrat Melanie Stansbury pummeled her Republican opponent by nearly 25 points.
The win is seen as encouraging to Democrat’s hopes for the 2022 midterms. Politico reports:
Stansbury, a state representative, led Republican Mark Moores, 63 percent to 33 percent, when The Associated Press called the race in her favor, a little more than an hour after polls closed. While that margin was likely to narrow somewhat as additional votes were tallied, Democrats hailed her comfortable win as a sign that their base enthusiasm has not waned and that the GOP’s doubling down on “defund the police” attacks backfired.
The district, which encompasses Albuquerque, is heavily Democratic. President Biden carried it by 23 points. Haaland won it by 16 before she was nominated to become Secretary of the Interior.
Why is the win important for Democrats? Politico notes:
The parties used the district as a way to test their midterm messaging. For Democrats, that meant selling Biden’s recovery packages and a brighter post-pandemic future. But Republicans mostly repeated their 2020 strategy of portraying all Democrats as insufficiently supportive of law enforcement.
