NM-01: Is Redistricting Worth It?

Let’s talk New Mexico.  One of the tiny pangs of disappointment for our side on election night last month was falling just barely short from knocking off Republican Heather Wilson in NM-01, a district with a PVI of D+2.4 that John Kerry won.  With seats as red as NY-20 (R+2.5), AZ-05 (R+3.7), NC-11 (R+7.1), and KS-01 (R+7.3) falling to upstart Democratic challengers in a national wave, local Dems are at their wits’ end as to what it will take to finally elect a Democrat in a Democratic district if they can’t do it in a favorable national environment.

With a rock-solid majority in the state legislature and Bill Richardson in the Governor’s mansion, the wheels are in motion to do an end run around Wilson and redraw the lines of NM-01, according to a recent Roll Call (subscription-only) article:

New Mexico Democrats, frustrated by their inability to defeat Rep. Heather Wilson (R-N.M.), now are openly talking about redrawing the state’s Congressional district boundaries prior to the 2008 elections.

State Sen. Jerry Ortiz y Pino (D), who said he is ready to introduce a redistricting bill when the Legislature convenes in January, insisted that his chief goal is to create Congressional lines that make more sense and keep communities of interest together – not to target Wilson.

[…]

In New Mexico, Democrats have held all the levers of power since Gov. Bill Richardson (D) was elected in 2002. Richardson has resisted legislators’ calls to redraw the boundaries of the state’s three House districts in the past, but a spokesman said Wednesday that the governor is at least willing to consider the prospect this time.

“The governor prefers to wait until the next round of redistricting in 2010, but he’s willing to meet with Sen. Ortiz y Pino about it,” Richardson spokesman Gilbert Gallegos said.

[…]

Ortiz y Pino is proposing unifying Valencia County south of Albuquerque, which is split between Wilson’s district and the 2nd district into the 1st district. That would put the Hispanic-majority city of Los Lunas in the 1st district along with a significant portion of American Indian territory. In exchange, Torrance County, an agricultural stronghold that is south and east of Albuquerque and now in the 1st district, would go into Rep. Steve Pearce’s (R) more rural and conservative 2nd district.

With all that in mind, we have two questions to ponder tonight:

1) Would the proposed redistricting of NM-01 be worth the political blowback?

2) Would the proposed plan make enough of a difference?

The answer to #2 might be entirely dependent on the answer to #1: an effort to redraw the lines of Wilson’s district two election cycles early could generate a level of public backlash that Wilson could play to her favor.  These are all things to consider, but let’s look at #2 first.

Ortiz y Pino’s plan, as mentioned, is centered around subtracting rural Torrance County from NM-01 and adding it to Republican Steve Pearce’s NM-02 in exchange for consolidating all of Valencia County in NM-01 (it’s currently split between the two districts).  According to CNN, here’s how Torrance County voted in 2006:

Wilson (R): 3,287 (61%)
Madrid (D)): 2,114 (39%)

And here’s how the portion of Valencia County in NM-02 voted:

Pearce (R): 7,995 (60%)
Kissling (D): 5,280 (40%)

Those numbers definitely give me pause here.  Granted, I accept all the usual caveats about comparing two unlike races (Kissling was an underfunded, under-organized challenger, so I doubt there was any extensive or effective GOTV in this county), but on the other hand, there were several counties that actually delivered for Kissling, so this doesn’t really seem like the most immediately obvious territory to tack on to NM-01 if beating Heather Wilson is your objective.  Perhaps shaving off some territory from Mark Udall’s NM-03 might be more productive in this case–but would certainly raise all kinds of red flags regarding Ortiz y Pino’s “compactness” argument.

Then again, I’m lacking all kinds of information about Valencia County.  Perhaps it is indeed an untapped reservoir of Democratic votes, but it doesn’t appear to be obviously so.  Perhaps we have some local readers who can offer some perspective on this plan, and on Valencia County in general.