GALLUP N.M. — Hours before early in-person voting ended, Cody Yazzie walked into the polling site wedged between a cell phone retailer and clothing store inside a mall.
Less than 10 minutes later he walked out with an “I Voted” sticker. He said the governor’s race is what brought him out to the polls.
“I feel like this state really needs a new leader,” Yazzie (Diné) said. “So today, I actually voted Republican, because I saw how we need a lot of change in the state. So that was my main issue was to vote for a new leader for governor and also the surrounding areas.”
Yazzie is one of the 436,919 voters in New Mexico that has already cast their ballot ahead of Tuesday’s midterm election. According to the Secretary of State’s Office, 353,460 voted early in-person at a polling site located in libraries, community centers and shopping centers across the state. Another 83,459 people had returned their absentee ballot as of Sunday.
The rate of early voting this year is higher than in 2018, which marked the largest turnout in state history for a midterm. That year, 55% of eligible voters cast a ballot early or on Election Day, a total of 693,893 votes.
Rachel Ortega also took a few minutes out of her day to vote at the mall in Gallup, a small city that borders the Navajo Nation, Zuni Pueblo and the state of Arizona. Like Yazzie, she said she wants to see change in the state, especially when it comes to reproductive rights. She wants to see restrictions on late-term abortions in New Mexico.
“I’m a born again Christian, have been in church my whole life,” she said. “I don’t agree with any abortion, but like I said, I understand that I can’t decide for what people want to do. I don’t agree with any of it but definitely not the late-term.”
In a post-Roe country where a U.S. Supreme Court decision reversed federal reproductive rights protections, those decisions on abortion are firmly with whomever will be elected to lead the state’s executive and legislative branches. The issue has been center stage in the campaigns for New Mexico’s governor.
Republican candidate Mark Ronchetti proposed clawing back some abortion services in New Mexico. He has stated support for a ban for someone who is more than 15-weeks pregnant. He suggested it could be a constitutional amendment so voters in the state could make the call. Still, a prominent local pastor has asserted twice during sermons that Ronchetti told him his real goal is a total ban on abortion in the state, an assertion the GOP candidate also made in previous interviews, according to the AP.
Most abortions — 93% — in the United States happen before 13 weeks, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data from 2019.
According to the CDC, more than 16% of the abortions reported in New Mexico come after the first 15 weeks of a woman’s pregnancy. The data published in 2021 is from 2019, the most recent reporting period of abortions in state’s across the country. According to the report, 3,942 abortions were conducted in New Mexico.
Three years ago, more than 23% of those procedures were for people from out of state. But New Mexico reproductive rights organizations have reported a significant uptick in care for out-of-state patients since the court’s decision.
Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham has committed to codifying abortion services in New Mexico law if she is re-elected.
While the state does not have restrictions on abortion, there are no state laws that explicitly protect care providers or people who receive an abortion. In 2021, Lujan Grisham signed a bill that reversed an outdated law still on the books in N.M. that banned abortion.
Since the Supreme Court ruling, Lujan Grisham signed an executive order saying the state will not cooperate with other states that have laws to punish citizens who travel to places like New Mexico for an abortion. She has also committed to spending $10 million for a reproductive rights clinic in southern New Mexico near the Texas border.Whoever wins the governor’s race will need to work with the state Legislature on any proposals that would restrict or expand reproductive rights in the state.
This fact is not lost on Melissa Sowers, a McKinley County resident who said she wants the Legislature to prioritize the issue when it meets for a 60-day session in January. She also would support a constitutional amendment so voters can have a say. While she doesn’t favor an outright ban, she would also like to see the Legislature do something to restrict the practice.
“I think it’s a case-by-case issue. I can understand if it’s something like medical, where the mother is in jeopardy,” she said. “I just don’t agree with using it as a form of contraception, you know, ‘Oh, I didn’t want this. And now we’re just gonna go take care of it.’”
Sowers’ viewpoint is held by many Americans. According to the Pew Research Center, 71% of people polled in May 2022 support abortion if medical complications could harm the pregnant person, and the majority of that same group support some restrictions, such as bans based on how long someone’s been pregnant.
As for reasons that bring people to decide on an abortion, the most common is financial instability, lack of support with child care or concerns for providing children already in the family, according to research from the Guttmacher Institute.
Sowers was one of the 6,129 McKinley County residents who voted early overall — both in person and absentee.
