Sandoval County tilting blue as election nears

Rob Oakes is among many Sandoval County voters supporting Democratic Sen. Barack Obama for president this year.

ALBUQUERQUE — If Republican Sen. John McCain still holds any hope of winning New Mexico’s five electoral votes next week, it might come down to Sandoval County voters like John Vento, Mary Martinez and Ralph Giffin, voters who as recently as mid-October still didn’t know who they would support for president.

Vento, a hair stylist who operates his own business within Tina’s Hair Salon in Rio Rancho, said he’s a registered Democrat who couldn’t bring himself to vote for Sen. Barack Obama and yet wasn’t excited about McCain either. And he isn’t alone, he said.  “A majority of our clientele say the same thing. Regardless whether they’re Republican or Democrat, they’re still undecided,” Vento said. “There’s a lot of undecided people out here.”

Though New Mexico initially was considered a key presidential battleground state in 2008, many pollsters have moved it out of the “toss-up” column and into that of Obama. But judging from the New Mexico Independent’s recent random poll of two dozen voters in Sandoval County — a largely Democratic county that nevertheless voted Republican in 2000 and 2004 — the state may be a toss-up yet.

Experience, change or none of the above?

On paper, Sandoval County looks much like many counties in New Mexico, with a demographically mixed population that leans Democratic. The New Mexico Secretary of State’s Office reports this month that 47 percent of the county’s 77,800 registered voters are D’s while 35 percent list themselves as Republicans, another 14 percent as independents and 4 percent as “other.” The percentages are largely unchanged from 2004 and 2000.

The percentages are largely reflected in the views of 23 voters contacted by The Independent on sidewalks and parking lots in four Sandoval County communities shortly before the final presidential debate. In this case, just over half — 13 to be exact — favored Obama, while five sided with McCain.

But perhaps most surprising in a poll taken three weeks before Election Day, five voters said they remained undecided, and all five live in Rio Rancho.

With a population pushing 80,000, Rio Rancho is the largest city in Sandoval County and home to roughly three out of four county residents. It’s a bedroom community for both Albuquerque and Santa Fe that has boomed in recent years. Younger families have flocked there because of its lower housing prices and school system, but Rio Rancho is also a popular retirement community that has attracted a substantial number of military retirees.

The Bush-Cheney ticket won Sandoval County and New Mexico in 2004, thanks largely to a 5,000-vote margin it received in Rio Rancho, which calls itself the City of Vision. The GOP won the county by just 1,200 votes, and the state by 5,900.

Republican leaders told the Independent in August they’re hoping for another sweep in 2008, but a quick check with voters suggests McCain has some work ahead of him to win. Indeed, five of the 13 Rio Rancho voters nabbed for quick interviews at a Smith’s Grocery shopping mall and a Wal-Mart store in mid October said they hadn’t chosen a candidate yet.

On his way into Smith’s earlier this month, Emillano Marquez, 34, said he had been leaning toward McCain until Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin was named to the ticket. “Her views and policies worry me,” he said. “If something happens to him, that’s who we have to depend on. That’s what’s swung me the other way.”

On the flip side, however, Marquez said Obama doesn’t seem substantive or experienced enough to be president. “I see Obama as more of a show,” a smooth talker whose policies don’t add up, he said. “It’s gotten now where he’s talking in circles.”

Ralph Giffin offered much the same sentiment as he filled up his van with gas. “I wanted Hillary,” Giffin said, “but I don’t know if I’m going to vote Obama. I just don’t think much of either of my choices for president.”

Like other undecideds, Giffin, 58, contrasted Obama’s inexperience with concern that McCain would deliver four more years of Bush administration policies. Though he believes Democrats would do better on health care, which he called his top priority, he also fears Obama would crack down on gun ownership and talk with the government of Iran. “That’s scary,” said Giffin, sounding like a McCain commercial. “You can’t negotiate with terrorists.”

Mary Martinez had just finished shopping with her 35-year-old son Ed Martinez when asked who they were voting for. Though her son is a union electrician and an Obama fan, she said she was wavering. “McCain would’ve been all right if he hadn’t picked that hockey mom,” she said.

Obama doesn’t strike her as presidential, however, Mary Martinez said, so it’s the VP choice that has her leaning Democratic, she said. “It’s because of Biden,” she said. “Obama is young, but he’s got a good vice presidential candidate.”

Nicole Hanna, too, cited Obama’s lack of experience as well as McCain’s age, health and VP choice as being key stumbling blocks for her. Asked what either candidate could say or do to get her vote, the 36-year-old said simply, “More specifics — just something I can believe in.”

Red county turning blue?

McCain had some supporters in the NMI poll, though perhaps none as staunch as Allan Nicol. The 70-year-old Rio Rancho retiree said he and every member of his family strongly favor the GOP candidate, “No ifs, ands or buts.” McCain’s recent downward trend in polling doesn’t worry him, he said, pointing to the remaining pool of undecided voters. “The people who are uncommitted now will put him over the edge,” Nicol said.

Fred Shinoski, 52, said he wasn’t planning to vote until McCain picked Palin. She brings assets to the ticket that he likes, he said: youth, a female perspective and strong support for guns and hunting. “I just thought that maybe somebody who is young and a girl would shake things up a bit,” he said.

Adan Delgado, 35, who had driven down from the town of Cuba, N.M., on a Wal-Mart run with his young family, said he would vote for McCain, though with reservations. He supported McCain initially, then the nation’s financial crisis worsened. He’s nervous about McCain’s age and health, and said he’s “a little worried” about Palin as vice president.

It was McCain’s stance on abortion that triggered his final change of heart and back to the GOP, Delgado said. Abortion is his No. 1 issue, he said, though if Obama wins it wouldn’t be the end of the world. He’d like to see a minority in the White House, he said. “I think that could be positive.”

In the 250-year-old village of Placitas, Sarah Flatow said she can’t bear the thought of Obama winning. “He’s a bag of air” and a liar and has a long list of bad associations, she said, and he’s particularly weak on Middle East issues. “He just has no clue as to what’s happening.”

McCain, on the other hand, is a strong leader who stands by his word, Flatow said. And the addition of Palin to the ticket was smart, she added. She was leaning McCain’s way already, she said, but the VP selection iced the decision.

Obama looks strong, nevertheless

Though the small size of the NMI poll makes it far from scientific, Obama supporters could take heart from it. More than half of those polled said they favor the Democrat, although Zoe White of Jemez Springs said she thinks Obama is starting to make promises he can’t keep, just to get votes. “If I thought he had a chance in hell, I’d vote for Nader,” she said.

Most sang Obama’s praises unequivocally, however, and echoed statements that have become familiar during the campaign. “It’s time for a change,” said Norman Cianchetti Jr., a 37-year-old tire shop mechanic. “It took me a while to come around — I was for Hillary. But after the debate last week I changed my mind.”

“I like his background,” said Lenore Reeve of Corrales. “He’s very intelligent and I think he’ll gather a group around him — like Kennedy did — a wise group of advisers.”

Sitting in his 1965 Mustang outside a Placitas grocery, Rob Oakes said he’s a longtime Obama supporter but is nervous about the outcome on Nov. 4. With less than three weeks left, he said, the McCain campaign has assumed a new theme: “Fight, fight, fight. It sounds like a high school sports event,” he said. “But fighting is not the answer to the serious problems in the world today.”

Fears that Obama might not receive the support of Hispanic voters in New Mexico have dissolved in recent months, thanks to efforts to assuage concerns and establish bridges by the party faithful — including Hillary Clinton and Caroline Kennedy. The campaign has clearly worked, a Survey USA poll showed recently, with Obama getting 71 percent support of Hispanics statewide. That was borne out in the NMI survey, as well.

Anthony Lopez, 58, of Bernalillo, said Obama will do more for the middle class. “I think he’s down to earth,” and is more likely to help workers and improve health care benefits for guys like him, who suffered injuries at work but have gotten little help from the federal government, Lopez said.

Antoinette Trujillo put up a pair of “Obamanos!” signs outside her store in Bernalillo, and while she was cautioned that her advocacy could drive away customers, she didn’t care, she said. “I like my customers. But if they are going to not support me because of that, I don’t need ‘em.”

Rio Rancho resident Leonard Rivera called himself a “Republican for Obama,” saying he jumped parties for two reasons: McCain’s choice of Palin as VP and because he thinks Obama can provide more jobs.

With just a week until Election Day, it’s clear from national, local and even unscientific polls such as this that Obama is in the driver’s seat in Sandoval County, as well as New Mexico. But if history is any guide — Kerry was well ahead in New Mexico polls in mid-October 2004 — McCain shouldn’t be counted out just yet.