Commentary: It was a squeaker, but in the end great candidates and smart, grassroots activism helped Las Cruces elect true progressive champions to city council!
Here's this morning's headline:
"Progressives win in tight City Council races"
Las Cruces Sun-News
While incumbent Mayor Ken Miyagishima was cruising to an easy victory in his three-way race for mayor, the three City Council races were running neck-and-neck throughout the night.
In the end, Kasandra Gandara won the race in District 1 by a mere 18 votes, incumbent Greg Smith won re-election in District 2 by 142 votes and Jack Eakman was elected in District 4 by just 11 votes, according to unofficial results posted on the city’s website.
If those results hold, they would represent a victory for progressives, and a setback for the Greater Las Cruces Chamber of Commerce, which endorsed a slate of candidates that it claimed would make city government more business-friendly.
None of the chamber-backed candidates won Tuesday.
What's more, the Albuquerque Journal just said this:
Political committees poured tens of thousands of dollars into the campaign, and the results could be viewed as a win for so-called progressives. Candidates for City Council Districts 1 and 4 backed by Albuquerque-based ProgressNOW won their races, while candidates in those races backed by the conservative GOALWest committee lost.
When word got out that 3 out-of-town donors were spending $80,000 to buy our elections through Steve Pearce's PAC, I set up ProgressNow PAC from our Las Cruces office to fight back.
With help from ProgressNow partners, grassroots donors and local volunteers, we contacted hundreds of voters in the mail, on the phone and online to remind them to vote for the real progressives.
Three out of town PACs (including one from Chicago!) raised more than $99,000 to spend on these local city council races.
We had just 1/50th of that, but we had great candidates, a plan to win and super volunteers!
As a lifelong Las Cruces resident who cares about the future of our city, thank you for helping us keep Las Cruces progressive and sending out of town special interests packing!