Battleground Zero

RIO RANCHO — If New Mexico does pave the way to the White House in November, as pundits have proclaimed and the candidates themselves have acknowledged, Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama might look back at one county as the key to the state: Sandoval.

Like New Mexico itself, Sandoval County has pockets of affluence and poverty, a rural past and an increasingly urban future, rich racial diversity and neighborhoods as white and homogeneous as any in Iowa. In 2004, Sandoval County — like the state as a whole — narrowly approved President Bush over challenger John Kerry even though registered Democrats far outnumber Republicans.

But interviews with more than a dozen voters by The New Mexico Independent on the eve of the upcoming presidential nominating conventions suggest Sandoval County may be ready for a change in 2008. Support for Obama was evident throughout the county, including in Rio Rancho, the county’s largest city and a GOP stronghold. While McCain was the clear favorite of some voters polled, it was clear that the Republican brand is tarnished for many others, including some of the party faithful.

“What’s taken place the last eight years isn’t what I want,” said Jim Cromartie, a lifelong Republican. “I feel like voting for McCain and the Republicans is saying we’re happy with the way things are. And I’m not.”

New and old, large and small

Spanish conquistadores in search of gold marched up the Rio Grande valley from Mexico in 1540 and found a thriving Pueblo culture in what is now Sandoval County. The Spaniards stayed, the Pueblos survived, and for the next 400 years the area attracted increasing numbers of farmers, miners, merchants and urban escapees. Sandwiched between the state capital, Santa Fe, and New Mexico’s largest city, Albuquerque, Sandoval County gradually became a bedroom community to both.

But the county’s population growth has been absolutely meteoric in recent years — 26 percent from 2000 to 2006, a rate almost four times higher than the rest of New Mexico, which itself is among the fastest-growing states. More than 117,000 people now live in Sandoval County and U.S. Census Bureau statistics show it to be a population that is younger, whiter and better off than New Mexico as a whole.

Demographically it is still a diverse region, though the percentage of Hispanics is far lower than statewide (32 percent compared with 42 percent). Sandoval has seven Indian pueblos and one of the highest American Indian populations in the state. Blacks make up less than 3 percent of the population, which is on par with the rest of New Mexico.

With the exception of a few precincts, Sandoval County is in the state’s 3rd Congressional District, and on paper is decidedly Democratic — 46 percent of registered voters to the GOP’s 36 percent. Though the number of registered voters has skyrocketed since 2000, from 48,500 to 70,450, the major parties’ shares have hardly changed; the split in 2000 was almost identical to now, at 48/35.

Yet Sandoval has voted Republican in the last two presidential elections, giving George W. Bush a 524-vote margin over Democrat Al Gore in 2000 and a 1,200-vote victory over John Kerry in 2004.

Why? The answer is Rio Rancho

The city is large enough and different enough demographically from the rest of Sandoval County that Rio Rancho itself can swing an election, and Republicans are hoping it will come through again in 2008, said Mary Kwapich, who until recently was vice chairwoman of the county Republican Party. “I think McCain will do very well. We have a lot of retired military people in Rio Rancho, and if they get out and vote,” the GOP will prevail in November, she said. “The strength of Rio Rancho could carry the county.”

Democrats are hoping to snap their losing streak with a long, strong ticket that should play well throughout Sandoval County, said county Democratic Party Chairman Jim Moran. Joining Obama on the ballot are popular U.S. Rep. Tom Udall, who is polling well in his bid for the U.S. Senate seat held more than 30 years by Republican Sen. Pete Domenici, and Ben Ray Lujan, a rising Hispanic political star who looks like a shoo-in for Udall’s House seat in CD 3.

“I think it’ll go back to the Democrats,” Moran said of Sandoval County. “Republicans and independents are coming over. They’re angry at the Bush administration, and McCain has the exact same policies.”

That’s what Cromartie said as he waited for his wife outside a Target store in Rio Rancho. “I want government to play a restricted role,” said the Texas native. But during the Bush years, he said, “government has become big business.” While he hasn’t committed to Obama, “I just want to do something different,” Cromartie said. “A lot of my friends are terrified Obama might get elected. I’m telling them, ‘You better get ready.’”

Rio Rancho is unlike most of Sandoval County for many reasons, starting with its age. Some of the Hispanic villages have been around for 300 years or more and the Pueblos flourished for centuries before that, but Rio Rancho wasn’t incorporated until 1980. Two real estate agents bought 90,000 acres of sand and sagebrush northwest of Albuquerque in the 1960s and started marketing the land that would eventually become Rio Rancho on the East Coast and in the Midwest as a retirement destination. Row after row of inexpensive tract housing stretching for miles across the high desert gradually turned it into a bedroom community to Albuquerque.

Now the third-largest city in New Mexico, Rio Rancho bills itself as the City of Vision. Computer-chip maker Intel Corp. has a huge manufacturing plant on the city’s main drag. In recent years Rio Rancho has attracted a hospital, branch campuses of several state universities, a semi-pro hockey team and hundreds of small businesses, but many residents still commute to work in Albuquerque.

In the 2004 presidential election, Bush won all 30 precincts in the city, earning a 5,000-vote margin; he won the county by just 1,200 votes.

But it doesn’t always vote Republican. Winning alongside Bush in 2004 were Udall and Democratic state Rep. Tom Swisstack. In 2006 the city voted for Sen. Jeff Bingaman, Gov. Bill Richardson and Udall — Democrats all.

Swisstack, who recently was elected Rio Rancho’s mayor, said its diversity makes the city dynamic. It has newcomers to the state as well as home-grown residents, a large evangelical Christian population and lots of young families attracted by its affordable housing, he said. “So you have this combination going on in this county, and as it continues to grow it has an impact.”

Though Rio Rancho has a history of GOP support, little was evident among people approached by the Independent. A few said they had no intention of voting. Teachers Joy Christopherson, 29, and Beverly Hollis, 57, said this is the most important presidential election in their lives, but they are waiting to hear more details from the candidates to make up their minds on who to support.

Both said they felt inundated by TV ads that were mainly personal attacks with little substance. “It’s a turn-off,” said Hollis. “You don’t know what to believe.”

Cathy Corbett, 33, said she won’t vote, in part because it would require too much work to sort out the candidates’ competing statements. But some of the TV ads seem to have stuck; she cited concern about Obama’s experience and said McCain’s plans for oil drilling could help to alleviate high gas prices — plans that most energy experts say are unrealistic.

Robert Young, 56, said he plans to vote, but doesn’t like either of his options. Obama has too little experience and McCain is too old, he said. His first choice had been Richardson, and Obama would definitely get his vote if he selected Richardson as vice president, he said. Otherwise, Young said, “I’ll probably hold my nose and vote for Obama.”

Small towns, big decisions

If Rio Rancho is the newcomer to Sandoval County, Bernalillo, the county seat, is one of the old-timers. While a strip of fast-food joints and oil-change shops on the east-west highway that cuts through town could be anywhere in America, the main north-south thoroughfare follows El Camino Real, the route established by Spanish explorers more than 300 years years ago. Bernalillo is a longtime farming community where hay bales are for sale on the city’s main street near downtown.

Ed Trujillo was outside his business, The Corner Store, roasting green chile peppers in a large, rotating wire-mesh drum on a recent morning. He was much more concerned about his chiles than the next president, however. “I don’t even vote,” he said. “Maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t think my vote even counts.”

Still, he said he has been disgusted by the Bush administration and its lack of support for small-business owners. “I don’t care” who wins, Trujillo said, “just as long as it’s not the Republicans.”

Down the street, an 85-year-old man stood joking with a friend in Spanish. When asked afterward whether he planned to vote, he burst into a smile. “You damn right — McCain,” he said. “And I’m a Democrat.”

He wouldn’t give his name, saying he had held public office before and didn’t want to share his views too widely. But he likes McCain’s status as a veteran, he said, and trusts the Arizona Republican to ensure national security. Asked why, as a longtime Democrat, he didn’t support Obama, the elderly Hispanic man didn’t offer anything concrete, except to say of McCain, “I think he’s a better man.” He said Obama’s race wasn’t a factor in his decision.

But there are hints that race may be a decisive, if hidden, issue for voters in Sandoval County, as it is elsewhere in the country. Several people told the Independent they know people — Hispanic, white and American Indian — who would not vote for a black candidate.

Ben Fergey, a 44-year-old furniture maker and Obama supporter in Bernalillo, said he asked American Indian kids playing behind his shop whether their parents supported the Democrat. “Black? No way,” they told him.

Ralph Silva, 53, said he, too, knows people who wouldn’t vote for Obama because of his race, which he called “just being narrow-minded.” Silva said he fought alongside black soldiers in Vietnam. “If I couldn’t depend on them, I might as well just shoot myself,” he said. Silva said he’ll vote for Obama because he believes the Democrat can better relate to the average American’s economic woes.

Nor was race an issue for a man who identified himself only as Tom, who spoke outside the Post Office in Placitas. It’s a sprawling, unincorporated community of about 4,000 in the foothills of the Sandia Mountains that was settled in the 1760s by Spanish colonists and resettled in the 1960s by hippies. A veteran of three tours in Vietnam, he said, “I couldn’t care less about his color — we all bleed red.”

The 60-year-old, 30-year Placitas resident said he generally supports McCain, whom he said would do better with the economy and national security. He has some qualms about McCain’s age — “The man is 78!” he exclaimed incorrectly; McCain is 71 for a few more days — and doesn’t think much of Obama’s central campaign thesis. “If this country is so great, why the hell does he want to change it?”

In presidential politics, Sandoval County has been almost evenly split for two elections, and as if on cue the next person arriving at the Post Office had the polar opposite view from Tom. Sharon Krachunis, who described herself as “over 65,” called this year’s presidential election the most important in her life and said change is badly needed. She is campaigning for Obama, she said, “because Bush has put us in such a chaotic mess.”

She likes Obama on all counts, saying he would do better on the economy, energy and national security, and said she is not fazed by his age or lack of experience. “Nobody knows what a president is going to do until he gets there. There’s no training for that job,” Krachunis said, but she trusts Obama to choose better people than Bush did as his vice president and Cabinet. “The most important thing is that Obama offers hope for the future,” she said.

Most of the voters interviewed by the Independent spoke about the candidates as if they had been following the presidential campaign — or at least the campaign commercials — since at least January. Those leaning toward Obama said that it was time for a change and that McCain offers more of the same policies as Bush. Several said he was too old to be president. The McCain supporters generally cited Obama’s lack of experience as their biggest concern. The Democrat’s religious background and color didn’t play a role in their decisions, they said, and no one mentioned his alleged “celebrity” status as defined in McCain’s TV ads. Iraq seems to have faded from most voters’ minds.

If anything can be learned from such a small sampling, it is that Sandoval County voters appear to be watching closely, listening intently and reading widely about the upcoming presidential election. Most seemed familiar with the candidates’ basic policy positions. But with half those questioned saying they hadn’t settled on a candidate or even whether to vote, the election outcome is far from decided in this swing county of a swing state.

The Independent’s Trip Jennings contributed to this report. Washington Independent intern Jonathan Cooper provided research.

Other CIM sites visit key counties in the presidential race.

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