Tuesday’s special election to represent New Mexico’s 1st District in Congress is just one race. No matter who wins — likely the Democratic candidate Melanie Stansbury — control of Congress won’t change. Yet, this race will also be one of our first insights into the political environment a little more than four months into President Joe Biden’s administration. …
The key to understanding how to read Tuesday’s result in that context is that New Mexico’s 1st is a heavily Democratic district. … It would take a truly unusual event for Republican Mark Moores to beat Stansbury. This heavily Democratic district covering much of Albuquerque just hasn’t voted for Republicans recently. Democrats, though, don’t only want to win this election. They want to win it big because of what it says about the larger state of play. CONTINUED
Harry Enten, CNN
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