New Mexico Politics As the Post-Trump Era Begins:  The View from Southern New Mexico

Three elements to keep in mind as the holidays beckon, the pandemic surges throughout NM, and a new president takes office in January:

1.  New Mexico continues to be polarized between Democrats in most of the North and Republicans in most of the South.  Statewide, Democrats continue having an edge but.....read on.

Biden beat Trump in NM by 100,000 votes out of about 900,000 votes cast--a gap of nearly 11%, not quite a landslide, but close.  Hillary won New Mexico in 2016 by only 8%, with only 700,000 votes cast, so the overall verdict on Trump in NM this year was negative.  However, Trump got about 80,000 more votes in 2020 than he did in 2016; Biden got about 115,000 more votes than Hillary.  Both the House and the Senate continue easily under Democratic control--more about this below.

Normal North-South partisan polarization in New Mexico in 2020 is evident in the Biden-Trump numbers:  In the North (18 counties) Biden got 60.5% of the vote, but only 41.7% of the vote (15 counties) in the South.  And without the huge numbers in Doña Ana County the vote for Biden in the South would have dropped from 42% to 33%.  (But remember that Doña Ana County is not AOC country.  Hillary beat Bernie in the 2016 primary here by whopping 56%-44%.  This is relevant to a point I will make below)

Democrats cannot take the sunny weather for granted.  Republicans have occupied the governor's mansion for fully16 of the past 26 years, and were able to control the NM House for two years during the Martinez administration, for the first time since the 1950s.  The only two Democratic US Representatives elected from the South since 1978 (Harry Teague and Xochitl Torres Small) each lasted only one term before being replaced by Republicans.

2.  The Pandemic and State Government:  Toast in Twenty Two?

After the disasters of the Trump mal-administration, voters may be more inclined to judge elected officials on their ability to govern well, rather than to spout rehearsed or defiant nonsense.  This puts pressure on the Governor's performance next year, given lackluster results so far.  Like Bill and Susana before her, the lure of Washington occupied too much of her time  After getting off to a classy start earlier this year, lately the governor appears to have been winging it.  In spite of outstanding talent at the NM Dept. of Health Michelle's recent decision-making about covid 19 seems strangely off-base.  At the moment NM is in the embarrassing position of running out of hospital beds as people with possible symptoms struggle to negotiate an inadequate, crazy-quilt testing regime--while the administration bickers endlessly with the Restaurant Association about miniscule details of opening and re-opening. The test of leadership is how well you handle the crises.  If the governor is unable efficiently to deliver vaccines and other pandemic assistance throughout the state--and begin to articulate a coherent approach to our many critical problems for the next five years--she could end up toast in '22 should someone serious decide to run against her.  In order for this to happen, however, the Republican Party of New Mexico would have to prove that it still believes in republicanism as opposed to crass tyrannical rule.  The test of leadership is how well you handle the crises.  At the moment the state Republican Party is paralyzed, apoplectic, unable to respond to the critical conditions of the state or to imagine the possibilities inherent in the messes before us.  It has forgotten that politics is about governing.  More about this in future postings.

3.  Most New Mexicans are More Moderate than Partisan.  The political balance of power among Democrats within the legislature this year shifted decisively to the North and away from moderation. This may set in motion powerful forces we've seen play out before.

The liberal wing of the Democratic Party in the North, led by Eric Griego and Paul Gibson, indulged in the mischief of unseating fellow Democrats in key Senate primary elections in the South.  The ostensible motive was to make the Senate more responsive to progressive legislation, but the outcome was to shift political power from the South to the North, and to weaken the party's appeal to the average New Mexico voter who for many decades has proven to be decisively in the moderate camp.  In 2021 the Democratic Party will no longer have bragging rights for harboring three of the strongest champions of moderation--Senators Mary Kay Papen, Senator John Smith, and Senator Clemente Sanchez--to keep both parties in check.  They were replaced by inexperienced persons now beholden to their out-of-district funders.

Each political party in New Mexico forgets to its own peril that the state is overwhelmingly moderate.  We've seen this movie before.  When Walter Martinez, Speaker of the House in 1977 engaged in the mischief of dis-empowering moderate-to-conservative Democratic legislators from the South, he was ousted as Speaker in 1979 by a coalition of moderate Democrats and Republicans.  Within a decade, the entire East Side of the state had switched party allegiances, and voter registrations, and today it is the center of gravity of conservative Republicans in New Mexico.

The middle-finger insult Griego and Gibson threw at moderate New Mexican voters throughout the state may come back to haunt the Democratic Party at the statewide level should moderate Democrats in the Southwest conclude, like their counterparts to the East long ago, that party loyalty will be abandoned when loyalty demands turning your back on the will of your constituents.  Gibson and Griego are outraged about recent national Republican willingness to indulge in blatantly anti-democratic practices.  But who are they to complain?  The balance of power held in the South until now was legitimately earned by senators who held the line of moderation against the extremes of both sides--just what most voters in New Mexico wanted.  By playing dirty tricks against three powerful moderates who represented their Southwestern districts faithfully, they have effectively disenfranchised hundreds of thousands of voters throughout the state--just the kind of blatant anti-democratic behavior they piously attack at the national level and that lost the Southeast of NM to the Republican Party long ago.   Will forces to counter this insult to moderation and democratic practice gin up to do something about it?  Veremos.

US-Mexico Border Update for Paso del Norte Region
Native Americans Hardest Hit in New Mexico

                         Pop          Cases       Tests        Deaths

New Mexico     2.1m        1,597        34,488        44

DAC                   218k          58           2,653           1

Texas                27.4m      17,371    169,536*     398

El Paso Cty         840k           451        1,499**       7

Chihuahua         3.6m            128           605***   24

Cd. Juarez         1.3m              88          N/A         22

New Mexico Covid-19 Cases by Ethnicity:  Native Americans:  37%; Hispano:  24.5%; Anglo:  21.4%

*includes extensive testing by private labs

**Through April 8

***Implied in data provided; probably does not include private testing

Souces:  NM Dept of Health, El Paso Times, Texas Dept. of Health and Human Services, Diario de Cd. Juarez

Making Sense Out of the Data:

1.  New Mexico is still way out in front of Texas in testing, although Texas is catching up, using mainly private labs.  On April 3 NM was testing 3.5 times more people per capita than Texas, but now the gap has shrunk to 2.6 times.  
2.  Testing in Chihuahua and Juarez lags far behind NM and Tx,   With data showing only about 605 tests in Chihuahua, it is far from clear that the 128 cases in Chihuahua is an accurate picture of what is happening there.  Surely Juarez and Chihuahua state have far more cases than those being reported.
3.  The lag in testing between NM and Texas shows up dramatically in the data coming from El Paso County and Dona Ana County.  The data on testing  from El Paso is a week behind (April 8) New Mexico's,  but as of then Dona Ana County was testing 9 times more persons per capita than El Paso County.  This suggests that the 451 reported cases in El Paso may be lower than the actual number.
4.  Dona Ana County has not been tested as thoroughly as New Mexico, but appears to be catching up.  Statewide 1.64% of all persons have been tested, in Dona Ana the corresponding number is 1.2%.
5.  Native Americans in New Mexico form only about 11% of the population, but have 37% of the cases, so far.  It may be that Native Americans, especially in the Northwest, have peaked early in infection rates, and may not in the end provide 37% of the total number of victims statewide.  Expect the ethnic distribution of cases to change as the virus spreads to other parts of the state.

Paso del Norte Coronavirus Positive Cases as of April 3

Area                   Population             Source (cases)              No. of cases        No. of tests

NM:                        2.1 million                Source                      403 cases          14,778 tests

Dona Ana Cty            218,000                Source                        21 cases                  N/A

Texas:                  27.4 million                 Source                    4669 cases           50,679 tests

El Paso                       683,000                Source                        78 cases                415 tests

Chih:                     3.6 million                  Source                        11 cases                 84 tests

Juarez                    1.3 million                 Source                          7 cases                   N/A

Making Sense Out of the Data:

1.  The amount of testing per capita varies wildly from place to place.   New Mexico leads all states in per capita testing, closing in on one percent of the total population.  This is about 3.5 times more testing per capita than Texas, and about 300 times greater than per capita testing in Chihuahua.  

2.  The numbers above don't reflect the reality on the ground.  At first glance it would appear that El Paso and Juarez have not yet been infected seriously, and that New Mexico is ahead of El Paso in the number of cases.  However, if you factor in the difference in testing, since Juarez and El Paso have not been testing as much as New Mexico, they can't know how widespread the contamination has reached.  With $110 billion dollars worth of goods being shipped across four bridges in the Paso del Norte region each year--the busiest border in the world except for the California-Mexico border, it seems likely that infections are higher than the numbers would imply.  One trucker, crossing the border at Santa Teresa, showing no symptoms but contagious, could have infected someone without knowing it.  Where did this trucker spend the night?  Where did s/he eat?  Where did he get gas--at theVado filling station or in Anthony?

Watch newspaper reports about what is happening in hospitals.

Opinion:  Mexico Debates Bailouts for Companies

Note:  Economic policy in the US last week was unusually bipartisan as the US government added two trillion dollars to its existing $6 trillion debt load, hoping to bolster the economy during the unprecedented economic calamity of the coronavirus crisis.

How is Mexico handling the economic fallout from the crisis?

 The debate over fiscal policy in Mexico is just beginning.  The path has not yet been chosen, but as it unfolds it will, more than the sycophantic behavior, determine what historians say about Armando Manuel Lopez Obrador.

Mexico is currently in its most me-too moment vis a vis the United States since the Revolution began over a century ago, and this holds for Mexican culture as well as for trade relations and Trumpian soundbites about national coronavirus health policy.  Consequential decisions must be made now.

 Pull the Plug on Most Maquilas in Chihuahua?

Tough Calls Are Headed This Way, Very Soon 

In Diario de Juarez today:  (click here)  Mexican law, published last week on March 27, decrees that from now until April 30, manufacturing plants can stay open only if they produce consumer goods, medical equipment, medical technology, or deal with the disposal of infectious diseases.

Three hundred thousand workers--out of a workforce of 450,000--in Juarez work in the manufacturing sector, virtually all of it in the maquila plants.  It is the backbone of the economy in Northern Chihuahua.  Only 39 plants out of 329 manufacture medical supplies.  You cannot stay at home on a laptop and assemble a computer or refrigerator.  The head of the Maquila plant association, Pedro Chavira, estimates that this implies releasing around 264,000 workers from work for (at least) four weeks.

Some sort of negotiation, said Chavira, must take place with these firms to find something that will benefit everyone during this situation.  "What we don't want to do, and it won't happen, is to send these people to their homes with no money." 

Some plants, perhaps as many as 20, have already ceased operations. especially in the auto parts industry, due to a lack of demand as auto makers in the US have already shut their doors.

Each worker in the manufacturing sector, on average, according to Chavira, produces about $1000 in goods.  This implies a loss, he says of up to $34 million (US) each day.

Question:  if the average worker contributes $1000 (US) per day in production value, how much does each get paid per day?  Answer:  Maquila workers  typically begin at the national minimum daily salary, which is a little over $6.00 per day, and might typically go up to $12.00 or $15.00.  Labor costs are low, and the quality of the labor is high.

Negotiations over all of this are continuous and ongoing in Mexico City, Chihuahua, Juarez, and with the Maquila owners and managers.  President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has not committed himself so far.  Bailout US-style?  How much for the workers?  How much and on what terms for the owners?  The stakes are high and will affect the daily lives of the 1.3 million persons now living in Cd. Juarez, just down the Rio Grande 45 minutes by freeway from Las Cruces.

Workers in at Least Three Maquila Plants in Chihuahua Complain of Conditions in Violation of Covid-19 Guidelines

El Heraldo (click here) reports Workers at Emerson Termotec, a Chihuahua manufacturing plant in assembling various electrical products have complained that the assembly lines don't meet required sanitary measures for combating coronavirus.  They complain about crowded conditions, lack of protective equipment, and they ask for sick pay.  "Some employees are still working while showing suspicious symptoms," one worker who asked for anonymity told Heraldo.

 Employees at Electrocomponentes planta No.2 complain the company is not requiring the two-week quarantine for personnel who are at greater risk if they contract the virus.  Moreover, older persons have not been allowed to go into quarantine, as required.

Workers at STC complain there have been salary cuts since the coronavirus crisis emerged.

Updates:  Homicides in Juarez Up So Far This Year
18 New Cases of Coronavirus in El Paso, for a total of 68.

Coronavirus:  Norte Digital carried a story 3 hours ago (click here) that El Paso health authorities have detected a total of 68 cases of coronavirus so far, 18 more cases than they reported yesterday, a sudden increase.

  
Note:  Texas responded to the pandemic slowly, in a slow two-step honky-tonk dance with Florida and other Southern states, and is likely now to face a major surge, if I read the spiraling numbers from Texas correctly.  Whether a huge surge will occur in El Paso as appears to be happening in East Texas is yet to be determined, but as a minimum El Paso has tested far fewer persons per capita than New Mexico, and social isolation measures were imposed only recently.

Homicides in Juarez:  Five persons so far were murdered in Juarez today, April first. Through March:  NorteDigital counts 374 so far this year, on track for reaching about 1500 by the end of December.  There were around 1402 murders in 2019, which was the worst year since 2012.

Note:   Recent reports in local news sources suggest that the pandemic has emboldened drug traffickers.  I am still following violent death in Juarez, but at this point the subject has changed from simply recording deaths and understanding some of the patterns and signatures of death, to analyzing the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on drug trafficking operations in the region.

Senator Joseph Cervantes Announces NM Dept. of Health Measure for South Dona Ana County

Drive-Up Window Tests for Covid-19 Will be Available in Sunland Park, Santa Teresa, and Other Areas of Southern Dona Ana County

Diario de Juarez (click here) reports this afternoon (April 1) that drive-up testing will be available in Southern Dona Ana for patients with symptoms or who have recently traveled.  Senator Joseph Cervantes announced this measure, saying "El Paso is literally across the street from New Mexico, in this district that I represent, and it is essential that we fight against this pandemic, knowing that the virus has no respect to state or national borders." (My translation from Diario's report).

Concerns in Cd. Juarez Over Lack of Federal, State, Transparency About Coronavirus Tally, Testing, and Preparation

Several items in Diario in the past two days confirm widespread  suspicion in Juarez that Covid-19 cases in Juarez are being under-counted.  El Paso, with highly limited testing, shows 57 cases of coronavirus (possibly more because Ft. Bliss has been ordered by the Dept of Defense to cease providing information about the number of Covid-19 cases uncovered there).  In Juarez the official count still stands at six.  Asked to explain why El Paso would have 10 times more cases than Juarez, the state health director of the Northern Health District of Chihuahua,  Arturo Valenzuela Zorrilla, said (click here) "our cities in Chihuahua are relatively protected since they are isolated in comparison with other cities in the country.  Cd. Juarez is far from other highly populated cities."    Note:  El Paso County, right across the river from Juarez, has an estimated population of about 900,000.

Members of the Citizens Medical Committeen(an entity of the Municipality of Juarez) have stated that the federal government has not managed Covid-19 in a professional manner, and accused the federal government of not providing information or coordination within the federal health sector.

1.  An un-attributed report in Diario today (click here) shows the official tally of pneumonia victims reported by public is high in comparison with last year, giving rise to widespread suspicions that coronavirus cases have been reported simply as "pneumonia," disguising the true spread of Covid-19.

2.  The president of the Mexican Chamber of Industry and Construction issued a statement (click here) saying "we are following instructions we've been given (about Covid-19), but as we look at information provided by authorities we don't know if they are accurate or not, so we suggest people should take precaution to avoid risks."


3.  In the same story (click here) The president of the Association of Transport Carriers, Manuel Sotelo, told Diario "we don't have information from both sides (state or federal government).  The (state) government said all is well, the Citizens Medical Committee (within the City of Juarez) says not.  (What we need) is for the (state) government to give us the information it has because it is important to know if one of the levels of government is hiding information."  "in addition," he said, we understand the federal government doesn't have enough testing kits available.  I am not happy to see that we don't have money to do testing, or for respirators, and enough hospital beds, while we are thinking of investing in other things.  We believe the health of Mexicans should come first."

4.  The President of Coparmex (Mexican Employer's Association) said (click here)  "I don't thing they are hiding data, because the don't have data to know how many cases there are so you can't distinguish if a person's symptoms are those of a normal cough or Covid-19."