sa国际传媒官网网页入口

When I went on Bob Clark's show on News Radio KKOB a week before Tuesday's primaries, I told Bob I believed New Mexicans were clamoring for moderates. He seemed a little surprised by that.

My take on the political landscape was that New Mexico voters wanted something between open borders and mass deportations, something between ending Obamacare subsidies and sex change operations on kids, something between electric vehicle mandates and ending all subsidies to buy EVs.

Hopeful of a surge of moderate voters boosted by independents, I enthusiastically endorsed Bernalillo County District Attorney Sam Bregman in the Democratic primary for governor, and cannabis entrepreneur Duke Rodriguez in the Republican primary for governor. I have no regrets on either endorsement, they just weren't worth the paper they were printed on.

With 77% of independent voters selecting Democrat ballots in the first New Mexico primary election in which decline-to-state voters have been eligible to participate, I was encouraged walking into the office Tuesday night and hungry for our traditional election night pizza (and salads, somewhat).

I had predicted on Bob's show the race between Bregman and former Interior secretary Deb Haaland would be a 10-point spread, at most. I also felt the Republican gubernatorial primary would be close between three-term Rio Rancho Mayor Gregg Hull and small businessowner Doug Turner, giving Turner the edge.

I was stunned by Tuesday's initial and subsequent results. My melancholy was probably apparent when I came on our livestream from the Journal newsroom shortly before 8 p.m.

The Democratic gubernatorial primary was instead a blowout from the first release of votes. Bregman finished with just 28%. The race was called 34 minutes after the polls closed at 7 p.m. Rodriguez finished with 16%.

To my deep dismay, the two most moderate gubernatorial candidates on either side of the aisle were resoundingly rejected by voters. It was a gut punch, a wakeup call, a splash of cold political realism that killed my pineapple pizza high.

Election night left me flabbergasted, flummoxed and frustrated. I owe a lot of people I betted a beer. The results, I readily concede, show that I had it all wrong. New Mexicans are as deeply divided as ever. Voters had no appetite at all for moderates that would get in the way of the continued catfighting with the Trump administration. The political machines won, and big, on both sides of the aisle.

I see now I was naive. If you haven't noticed in the TV ads and mailers, Democrats loathe President Trump with every fiber of their being. It defines them, it's with them 24/7. Their visceral hatred for Trump is their top and most unifying issue.

Republicans, conversely, continue to support our duly elected president, warts and all. We are steadfast in light of increasingly frequent assassination attempts, impeachments old and new, and indictments that tried, as former FBI Director James Comey put it, to put Trump in a double-wide out by the fenceline of some prison. Saving Trump from an assassin or a mob's hangman has become our most unifying issue.

We are living in two Americas, two New Mexicos, separate and hostile to the other side. Democrats I know seemingly have no friends who are Trump supporters, and Trump supporters have few friends who are Democrats. I'm trying, though, and I know many of you are, too.

I spoke May 30 at a Braver Angels New Mexico Alliance debate on ranked choice voting on the University of New Mexico campus. It was a fun and informative Saturday afternoon, for me at least. I hope Paul Gessing and I delivered the death blow to the cockamamie grad student electioneering scheme of RCV.

People were respectful of other people's viewpoints and we made our cases with civility, even myself. We clapped in approval by slapping our legs, a quaint practice used by the club that seeks common ground and mutually agreeable solutions. We need so much more of that.

The primary election results three days later, on the other hand, indicate we are too often mutually exclusive groups unable to sit down together for burgers at a backyard barbecue without getting mad at each other over something involving Trump.

And we have five long months to go, amid a war-dampened semiquicentennial celebration of America, before the 2026 elections are settled. I think it's going to be a long, hot summer during our 250th year that tests our resolve to stay together as a nation, as a state, as friends and even as families.

Covering politics can be fun. The candidates used to shake hands after debates and wish the victor well. Now, politics is a profession and a blood sport. And the campaigning and fundraising never ends.

The animosity and acrimony flow down from the top. I think we'll be seeing a lot of TV ads about Trump from Democrats between now and the general election on Nov. 3. It appears to be all they've got. I wonder if Democrats' election ads in 2028, 2030, 2032, and long after the Trump administration will still vilify him and malign his supporters. I think so. The political consultants will advise it as long as it works up the Democrat base, raises millions of dollars and leads to victories in blue regions.

Haaland and Hull are now the standard bearers for their respective parties in New Mexico. They will set the tone for the next five months. I hope it turns into a campaign of competing policies and contrasting ideas. Republicans would have a chance if that were the case. But I fear it will be another issue-devoid referendum on Trump that only further divides us.

We'll see what they're made of between now and November. I think it's going to be a contest of hope versus Big Hate, optimism versus victimization, centrism against extremism, and moving forward or getting even.

I hope, for the sake of New Mexicans on both sides of the political aisle, I'm wrong again. I'm tired of seeing roughly half of New Mexicans as my existential foes.

Jeff Tucker is a Journal columnist, former Opinion editor and a member of the Journal鈥檚 Editorial Board. He can be reached a jtucker@abqjournal.com.