Election, What Election?

This year's electoral reality of a lackluster top of the ticket has some Democrats worried about a lower-than-usual turnout to the polls on Nov. 4, spelling trouble for a party with a weakly supported challenger facing a popular Republican incumbent governor.

But local pollster Bruce Donisthorpe is projecting a 2014 general election turnout comparable to any other non-presidential election year. That means somewhere around 600,000 people across the state voting by the close of polls.

"I don't find anything that suggests that things are going to be significantly lower now than they are in any historical midterm election," he says.

Presidential election years, which bring more people to the polls, usually prompt a 750,000 to 800,000 person turnout in New Mexico, he adds.

It's still not much to boast over. That's because in the grand scheme of things, people just aren't voting.

During the last midterm election in 2010, just 44 percent of registered voters in New Mexico bothered to show up and vote. Even during the 2012 presidential cycle, just 61 percent of registered New Mexico voters cast a ballot. And those numbers don't take into account residents who meet the voting age but aren't registered to vote.

Meanwhile, Donisthorpe will be in the field this week doing one last projection of voter turnout.

Early voting continues locally at the Santa Fe County Clerk's office through Saturday, Nov. 1. Other county sites for early voting include the Santa Fe County Fair Building, the Pojoaque County Satellite Office, the Eldorado Senior Center and the Old Edgewood Fire Station.

Santa Fe Reporter