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This story was last updated at 10:28 p.m.
Voters lined up at polling places or dropped off absentee ballots on Tuesday for the 2024 election.
New Mexico voters will choose which candidate for president will receive New Mexico’s five electoral votes; select a U.S. senator and three representatives to the House of Representatives; elect state legislators and local officers; and vote on state constitutional amendments, judicial retention and a number of local ballot questions.
Polls were open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. to facilitate voting in person or to receive absentee ballots at 42 voting elections. There were also nine secured dropboxes in use for absentee ballots.
Early voting ended Saturday with 48,862 ballots cast by county residents ahead of Tuesday, as reported by the Doña Ana County Clerk’s office. That’s higher than in the last presidential election in 2020, when 40,237 people voted early.
As of 5:30 p.m., with 90 minutes left, 80,763 county residents had voted, with long lines remaining at some locations.
Of those, 37,163 votes were from registered Democrats; 25,456 Republicans; 17,015 independents (classified in New Mexico as "decline to state"); 801 Libertarians; and 328 registered as other.
If absentee ballots remain to be counted at 11 p.m., the absent voter election board which counts those ballots will recess until 9:30 a.m. Wednesday to continue counting.
As voting continued through the day, some locations saw long lines for same-day voter registration, which the clerk's office attributed to high demand.
The contenders in New Mexico's closely-watched southern congressional contest, U.S. Rep. Gabe Vasquez and challenger Yvette Herrell, spent the afternoon in different parts of the sprawling and diverse district: Herrell was in Alamogordo, while Vasquez campaigned and spoke with reporters in Las Cruces.
The freshman Democrat, asked how his term in Congress had affected his view of public service, said, "D.C. is a meat grinder; and if you fall asleep at the wheel in Washington, your constituents will notice that. ... There are far too many representatives in Congress that have felt too comfortable for so many years, serving over and over again, and they represent party politics instead of actually doing what's right for their district."
Local Democrats packed the Amador Patio Bar and Grill in downtown Las Cruces for a watch party where a mariachi band played and armed security guards roamed, indoors and out. Herrell was expected to watch results with campaign staff and volunteers.
Initial, unofficial results were posted and frequently updated on the New Mexico Secretary of State's website. These results are often used to project election winners, yet remain unofficial until the conclusion of processes to confirm and certify the results.
Meanwhile, the Associated Press has projected New Mexico's senior senator, Democrat Martin Heinrich, to win a third six-year term, defeating Republican challenger Nella Domenici, the daughter of longtime senator Pete Domenici.
Shortly after 10 p.m., however, the watch party began to dissipate, without a clear outcome in the Vasquez-Herrell match and a few legislative contests also too close to call yet.
If absentee ballots remain to be counted at 11 p.m., under state law the absent voter board, which counts those ballots, must halt their work for the evening and resume at 9:30 a.m. tomorrow.
