Primary Election 2008 — 
Surprises, upsets
One vote separates Jeff, Pena in McKinley County

ABOVE: Voters at Jefferson Elementary cast their votes during Tuesday's Primary Election. [photo by Brian Leddy / Independent] BELOW: Landslide winner in the District 2 Cibola County Commissioner race, T. Walter Jaramillo, and wife, Romie Jaramillo, wait in the courthouse for more election results to come in. [photo by Helen Davis / Independent]

By Bill Donovan
Staff writer

GALLUP — A light turnout resulted in most incumbents in McKinley County coming out victorious in an election that saw a lot of new faces hoping to get into office.

Patty Lundstrom, John Pinto, Karl Gillson and Lynda Lovejoy may have been worried about winning, but county voters had no problem giving them a primary victory in the Democratic races. While Jacqueline Sloan faltered a little in the early voting, by the time all votes were in for county clerk, she had no problem defeating the other seven candidates for that position.

In the state Senate District 4 race, George Munoz was the top voter getter in McKinley County, and The Associated Press declared him the winner of the nomination about 10:30 p.m.

The state Rep. District 5 race was a nail-biter with John Pena, the incumbent, holding a 200 vote lead over Sandra Jeff for the early part of the night, but as the outlying precincts began reporting in, she began to gain momentum and unofficial vote totals showed her one vote behind Pena — 901 to 900 — when all precincts in McKinley County were in.

However, she won the precincts in San Juan County easily — 142 to 54 — and ended up defeating Pena by almost 90 votes and will appear on the ballot in November.

Irvin Harrison, who had that seat before he resigned last year allowing Pena to be appointed, ran to regain the seat but he wasn’t a factor in the primary.

In the District 3 U.S. Representative race, McKinley County voters went for Benny Shendo Jr. in a big way, but Shendo didn’t do as well in other counties. Ben Lujan was declared the winner for the congressional seat that was given up by Tom Udall. In the Republican race for that seat, Marco Gonzales got slightly more votes than Daniel East in McKinley County, but East won the state overall.

That was the same case for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate where McKinley County voters gave Heather Wilson a seven vote majority over Steve Pearce but statewide, The Associated Press was showing Pearce leading Wilson by more than 2,000 votes with 96 percent of the state’s votes counted about 2 a.m.

A total of 8,750 voters came out in McKinley County (7,326 Democrats and 1,424 Republicans) for a turnout of about 25 percent, which county election chief Rick Palochak declared to be low.

“Usually we get between 40 and 45 percent for a primary,” he said.

There were no major problems in conducting Tuesday’s primary, he said, but there was some confusion in a couple of chapters in the western portion of the county like Manuelito where some voters apparently went to the wrong precinct. These voters were given provisional ballots and the election office will be going over these in the next few days.
No one expects the provisional ballots to affect the outcome of any race but they may give Jeff a victory in McKinley County as well as in San Juan County.

Jeff said at a Democratic bash held at the El Rancho Tuesday evening that she credits part of the reason she won to spending the time to meet the voters. During the campaign, she said she hit every chapter in her district three or four times, as well as going door to door in some areas.

A former assistant to Lovejoy when Lovejoy was on the Public Regulatory Commission, Jeff also held that same position for Lovejoy when the Senate was in session. For that reason she campaigned on a platform that she was familiar with the way the legislature operated and knew a lot about the issues that the legislature would be addressing.

Lundstrom was also at the Democratic gathering celebrating her victory. Getting a 3-1 majority over her opponent showed, she said, “that the voters appreciated her efforts in the past” to bring home state funds to improve the quality of life for her constituents. “And I appreciate them,” she said.

Pinto, who has been in the state Senate now for 32 years, said he was still worried about the outcome of this election. He said he still gets a kick out of attending the Senate sessions and his daughter, who was with him, agreed, saying “that’s his life.”

Gillson said that his victory over Buffington was bittersweet since it was Buffington who, when he was district attorney, hired the young Gillson out of law school and gave him a job.
“He was my mentor,” Gillson said.