ALBUQUERQUE — New Mexico Democrats appear to be taking Barack Obama to heart.

Through Monday, more than 132,000 registered Democrats had voted early or by absentee across the state, compared to 71,187 registered Republican voters, the Secretary of State’s office reported Tuesday.

That seemingly would give Obama a big edge over Republican John McCain in the presidential race if polls can be believed. Surveys have shown that 83 percent of Democrats nationally are voting for Obama, compared to 89 percent of Republicans who are voting for McCain.

But experts have cautioned reading too much into partisan results until votes of those who are unaffiliated are counted. And more than 23,000 New Mexicans who consider themselves independents had cast votes through Monday, the Secretary of State’s office said. 

The apparent edge that Obama carries into Election Day could also diminish as time goes on because Republicans start their mobilization efforts closer to Election Day, some say.

Obama and his surrogates often remind voters to vote early so often at rallies that the exhortation resembles a mantra, as happened Saturday night at Johnson Field at the University of New Mexico. Obama and several speakers on Saturday constantly encouraged the thousands in attendance to vote early.

That message appears to have sunk in. New Mexico Democrats lead in both early vote and absentee vote tallies, statewide numbers show. Democrats had returned more than 36,000 absentee ballots compared to more than 25,000 from Republicans through Monday. Absentee voting started Oct. 7. Meanwhile, Democrats held an even larger lead on early votes — 95,361 to 45,841, according to the Secretary of State’s office. 

When early votes and returned absentee ballots across the state are combined, more than 226,000 New Mexicans– or 19 percent of the state’s 1,183,081 registered voters — had voted through Monday, figures show. Early voting ends Saturday.

That spike in early voting certainly was evident Tuesday in Bernalillo County, the state’s most populous county.

By 1:30 p.m., more than 6,000 people had walked into Bernalillo County’s 16 early voting sites to cast a ballot, said County Clerk Maggie Toulouse-Oliver. The surge meant that Tuesday’s early vote total likely would easily eclipse the 8,000 or so people who on average show up each day at Bernalillo County’s 16 early voting sites. Early voting started in New Mexico on Oct. 18.

If that pattern of early voting in Bernalillo County continues through Saturday, the last day New Mexicans can cast ballots early, Bernalillo County could shatter its previous tally of 77,300 early voters, which was set in 2004, Toulouse-Oliver said.

“If that trend continues … we should have approximately 97,000 voters cast early ballots in Bernalillo County this year,” Toulouse-Oliver wrote in an e-mail to the New Mexico Independent and to the Associated Press on Tuesday afternoon.

More than 102,000 — or 27 percent of Bernalillo County’s more than 393,000 registered voters, or roughly one of every four — have already cast ballots in this year’s election when absentee ballots are added to early vote totals.

And like at the state level, Demcrats lead in both categories. More than 34,000 Democrats had early voted, compared to nearly 16,000 Republicans, the county reported. Meanwhile, slightly more than 23,000 Democrats had returned absentee ballots, compared to nearly 18,000 Republicans.