New Mexico to get first female governor

Martinez wins GOP race to face Denish for top job

Steve Terrell | The New Mexican
Posted: Tuesday, June 01, 2010 - 6/1/10

ALBUQUERQUE — The next governor of New Mexico will be a woman.

Republican voters in the state elected Susana Martinez, the district attorney from Doña Ana County, to be the GOP nominee to run against Lt. Gov. Diane Denish, who ran unopposed in the Democratic primary.

Martinez defeated former state Republican chairman Allen Weh, as well as state Rep. Janice Arnold Jones, public-relations company owner Doug Turner and Pete Domenici Jr., son of the former U.S. senator.

Not only are the Republicans running a woman for candidate. The top of the ticket will be two Hispanics.

Martinez's running mate will be Albuquerque businessmen John Sanchez, a former state legislator from Albuquerque who was the Republican gubernatorial candidate in 2002. Sanchez edged out state Sen. Kent Cravens of Albuquerque and former state Rep. Brian Moore in the lieutenant governor primary. Denish's running mate is former party chairman Brian Colón.

Lonna Atkeson, a political-science professor at The University of New Mexico, said the Denish-Martinez match-up "will be a very interesting race because you'd have two women of very different backgrounds. ...They offer very different perspectives about the future."

Atkeson predicted Martinez will focus on corruption and law-and-order themes while Denish will focus on jobs and the economy. "It's going to force Denish to talk about issues she (Martinez) wants to talk about, including immigration. I've always thought of us as a state that ignores immigration."
Will an all-Hispanic ticket help the Republicans in Northern New Mexico, where Hispanics in recent decades have voted overwhelmingly Democratic? If history's any indication, the ethnicity factor might not matter that much.

http://www.santafenewmexican.com/Local% ... al-primary