2000 United States presidential election in New Mexico

The 2000 United States presidential election in New Mexico took place on November 7, 2000, and was part of the 2000 United States presidential election. Voters chose five electors to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president. New Mexico was won by Vice President Al Gore by a 0.06 percent margin. It was the closest state in the entire presidential election by raw vote margin (366 votes), closer than Florida. News outlets called New Mexico for Gore at approximately 10:21 p.m. (EST),[1] but later retracted the call when it was determined to be too close to call.[2]

2000 United States presidential election in New Mexico

November 7, 2000

Nominee Al Gore George W. Bush Party Democratic Republican Home state Tennessee Texas Running mate Joe Lieberman Dick Cheney Electoral vote 5 0 Popular vote 286,783 286,417 Percentage 47.91% 47.85%

County Results Gore   40-50%   50-60%   60-70%   70-80% Bush   40-50%   50-60%   60-70%   70-80%

President before election Bill Clinton Democratic Elected President George W. Bush Republican

Gore was not declared the winner of the state until November 17.[3] Gore carried the northern part of the state, home of the 3rd district. Bush carried the southern part of the state, which is home of the 2nd district. The central part of the state, home of the 1st district, was won by Gore narrowly by 47.91% as opposed to Bush's 47.85% (a margin of 0.06%).[4][5]

In the days following the election, when the disputes and recounts began, New Mexico, despite having a razor-thin margin, went largely ignored. Its five electoral votes alone would not have changed the overall outcome in the Electoral College if it were switched from Gore to Bush or vice versa.[6][7] The respective campaigns ended up paying little attention to recount efforts in New Mexico, and focused their efforts solely on Florida. Likewise, the media focused very little on the New Mexico recount. After the final count was certified for Gore on November 30,[7] the Bush campaign did not challenge the results.[7] This would also be the first election in which New Mexico failed to vote for the winning candidate since 1976. As of 2020, this is the last time that New Mexico was more Republican than the nation as a whole.

Bush became the first Republican to win the White House without carrying Bernalillo County since New Mexico statehood.

Results

2000 United States presidential election in New Mexico
Party		Candidate	Running mate	Votes	Percentage	Electoral votes
	Democratic	Al Gore	Joe Lieberman	286,783	47.9%	5
	Republican	George W. Bush	Dick Cheney	286,417	47.9%	0
	Green	Ralph Nader	Winona LaDuke	21,251	3.6%	0
	Libertarian	Harry Browne	Art Olivier	2,058	0.3%	0
	Reform	Pat Buchanan	Ezola Foster	1,392	0.2%	0
	Natural Law	John Hagelin	Mary Alice Herbert	361	0.1%	0
	Constitution	Howard Phillips	Michael Peroutka	343	0.1%	0
Totals				598,605	100.00%	5
Voter turnout (Voting age/Registered)						46%/61%

Results by county

County	Albert Arnold Gore, Jr. Democratic		George Walker Bush Republican		Ralph Nader Green		Various candidates Other parties		Margin
	%	#	%	#	%	#	%	#	%	#
San Miguel	71.39%	6,540	24.18%	2,215	3.76%	344	0.68%	62	47.21%	4,325
Taos	64.61%	7,039	25.19%	2,744	9.77%	1,064	0.44%	48	39.42%	4,295
Rio Arriba	67.53%	8,169	28.89%	3,495	3.12%	377	0.46%	56	38.64%	4,674
Santa Fe	64.72%	32,017	28.25%	13,974	6.50%	3,215	0.54%	265	36.47%	18,043
Mora	66.45%	1,456	30.49%	668	2.24%	49	0.82%	18	35.97%	788
McKinley	64.75%	10,281	31.93%	5,070	2.47%	392	0.86%	136	32.82%	5,211
Guadalupe	65.17%	1,076	33.19%	548	1.45%	24	0.18%	3	31.98%	528
Cibola	58.23%	4,127	38.83%	2,752	2.31%	164	0.63%	45	19.40%	1,375
Grant	50.47%	5,673	44.13%	4,961	4.71%	530	0.68%	77	6.33%	712
Doña Ana	51.26%	23,912	45.58%	21,263	2.48%	1,158	0.69%	320	5.68%	2,649
Bernalillo	48.68%	99,461	46.62%	95,249	4.05%	8,274	0.65%	1,335	2.06%	4,212
Socorro	48.26%	3,294	46.48%	3,173	4.09%	279	1.17%	80	1.77%	121
Colfax	48.58%	2,653	47.61%	2,600	2.98%	163	0.82%	45	0.97%	53
Sandoval	46.92%	14,899	48.57%	15,423	3.81%	1,211	0.70%	222	-1.65%	-524
Valencia	45.93%	9,819	50.54%	10,803	2.88%	615	0.65%	140	-4.60%	-984
Hidalgo	45.75%	839	52.02%	954	1.53%	28	0.71%	13	-6.27%	-115
Luna	44.99%	2,975	51.35%	3,395	2.81%	186	0.85%	56	-6.35%	-420
Los Alamos	40.60%	4,149	55.03%	5,623	3.22%	329	1.15%	117	-14.43%	-1,474
Eddy	39.96%	7,108	58.10%	10,335	1.44%	256	0.49%	88	-18.14%	-3,227
Torrance	37.66%	1,868	58.29%	2,891	3.29%	163	0.77%	38	-20.63%	-1,023
Quay	38.27%	1,471	59.63%	2,292	1.33%	51	0.78%	30	-21.36%	-821
Sierra	36.83%	1,689	59.33%	2,721	2.88%	132	0.96%	44	-22.50%	-1,032
Harding	36.09%	214	61.72%	366	1.52%	9	0.67%	4	-25.63%	-152
De Baca	35.54%	349	62.32%	612	1.22%	12	0.92%	9	-26.78%	-263
San Juan	34.57%	11,980	61.85%	21,434	2.66%	923	0.92%	320	-27.28%	-9,454
Chaves	34.93%	6,340	62.69%	11,378	1.69%	307	0.68%	124	-27.76%	-5,038
Otero	33.73%	5,465	63.31%	10,258	2.09%	338	0.88%	143	-29.58%	-4,793
Roosevelt	31.18%	1,762	66.57%	3,762	1.73%	98	0.51%	29	-35.39%	-2,000
Lincoln	29.93%	2,027	65.83%	4,458	2.48%	168	1.76%	119	-35.90%	-2,431
Curry	29.00%	3,471	69.35%	8,301	1.23%	147	0.42%	50	-40.35%	-4,830
Lea	27.04%	3,855	71.25%	10,157	1.19%	169	0.53%	75	-44.21%	-6,302
Union	25.75%	452	72.31%	1,269	1.08%	19	0.85%	15	-46.55%	-817
Catron	20.63%	353	74.40%	1,273	3.33%	57	1.64%	28	-53.77%	-920

Results by congressional district

Gore won 2 of 3 congressional districts.[8]

District	Bush	Gore	Representative
1st	47.8%	47.9%	Heather Wilson
2nd	54%	43%	Joe Skeen
3rd	40%	57%	Tom Udall

Electors

Technically the voters of New Mexico cast their ballots for electors: representatives to the Electoral College. New Mexico is allocated 5 electors because it has 3 congressional districts and 2 senators. All candidates who appear on the ballot or qualify to receive write-in votes must submit a list of 5 electors, who pledge to vote for their candidate and his or her running mate. Whoever wins the most votes in the state is awarded all 5 electoral votes. Their chosen electors then vote for president and vice president. Although electors are pledged to their candidate and running mate, they are not obligated to vote for them. An elector who votes for someone other than his or her candidate is known as a faithless elector.

The electors of each state and the District of Columbia met on December 18, 2000[9] to cast their votes for president and vice president. The Electoral College itself never meets as one body. Instead the electors from each state and the District of Columbia met in their respective capitols.

The following were the members of the Electoral College from the state. All were pledged to and voted for Gore and Lieberman:[10]

1. Tom Atcitty
2. Rick Blea
3. Diane D. Denish
4. Jeep Gilliland
5. Mary Gail Gwaltney

References

1. "2000 Events Timeline - Election Night". Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections. Retrieved 2012-01-11.
2. "2000 Events Timeline - Post-Election". Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections. Retrieved 2012-01-11.
3. Ferguson, Chaka (2000-11-18). "Gore Finally Wins in New Mexico". AP. Yahoo.com. Retrieved 2012-01-11.
4. "Presidential Results by Congressional District, 2000-2008". Archived from the original on 2015-09-24. Retrieved 2012-01-11.
5. "2000 Presidential General Election Results - New Mexico". Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections. Retrieved 2012-01-11.
6. "Recounts might spread to New Mexico, Oregon". USA Today. 2000-11-13. Archived from the original on 2012-08-08. Retrieved 2012-01-11.
7. "Bush decides against recount in New Mexico". CNN. 2000-12-09. Archived from the original on 2014-10-28. Retrieved 2012-01-11.
8. https://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/data.php?year=2000&fips=35&f=0&off=0&elect=0&datatype=cd&def=1
9. "2000 Post-Election Timeline of Events".
10. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2012-02-12. Retrieved 2009-11-01.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)