Voter turnout in ABQ runoff nearly matched first round of voting

Nearly as many people voted in the Albuquerque runoff election Tim Keller won on Tuesday as voted  in October's eight-way election, according to unofficial numbers from the Bernalillo County Clerk's office.

According to the city's unofficial numbers, 96,813 voters cast ballots in the  runoff between Keller and Dan Lewis—a 28.7 percent turnout among registered voters. That's close to the 97,000 who cast ballots in the first round of voting on Oct. 3, a 28.8 participation rate among registered voters.

UNM professor of political science Lonna Atkeson said she was surprised by the high turnout and cited Keller's "incredible ground game."

"His volunteer base was huge and he was getting volunteers to get other volunteers," she said. "He created this large organization and network."

In all, more than 3 in 5 ballots in the mayoral runoff were cast either early or by absentee ballots. Keller received the bulk of those.

He received 36,152 early votes in the runoff—just 442 fewer votes than Lewis received in total.

In a city with more registered Democrats, large turnout naturally favored Keller.

In the City Council District 5 race, 11,118 voters cast ballots in the runoff election, a higher number than the 9,866 who cast ballots in October.

This race was won by another Democrat—Cynthia Borrego, who defeated Robert Aragon.

Aragon actually had the most votes in the first round of voting—beating Borrego 3,878 to 3,736. It was the 2,251 votes from Catherine Trujillo that stopped either Aragon or Borrego from getting to 50 percent and needing a runoff election.

This time, Aragon received 5,113 votes, but lost by 9 percentage points to Borrego's 6,005 votes.