'Average' early voter turnout for election

Quay County Clerk Ellen White said Friday she was seeing "average" turnout in early voting for this week's midterm election.

At the end of early voting Saturday, a total of 1,245 Quay County voters had cast their ballots before Election Day on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, the Republican candidate for governor and a Democratic congresswoman made stops in Tucumcari during the final week before the election.

(Election Day results were reported after the Quay County Sun's deadline. A report on the election will be posted at qcsunonline.com or in the Nov. 16 edition of the newspaper.)

White said 237 absentee ballots had been mailed in the county this year, with 41 that hadn't been returned.

"Absentee (voting) will be a little higher if we get them back," she said. "Early voting is a little down."

In the 2018 midterm election, White said 1,362 people voted early, with 178 absentee ballots submitted. Turnout that year was 52%.

White remarked on how problem-free that early voting had been in the county.

"It's been as smooth as butter - people coming in, voting and leaving," she said. "It's been pretty quiet. It's gone pretty seamless."

The office maintains one dropbox for filled ballots outside of the courthouse. But White said Friday only one ballot had been placed in it.

"People want to bring their ballots in to us," she said. "They're just not interested in (a dropbox) here."

White said Quay County contains 5,871 registered voters, compared to 6,093 during the 2020 election.

While on the campaign trail, U.S. Rep. Teresa Leger Fernandez (D-Las Vegas) appeared onstage Wednesday during a speech at Tucumcari High School's gymnasium by Thomas Begay, one of three surviving Navajo Code Talkers from World War II.

Afterward, she and her aides stopped at City Hall to hear city officials' concerns about funding for several pressing projects.

Leger Fernandez had made campaign stops in Clovis the previous day.

At midday Friday, Republican gubernatorial candidate Mark Ronchetti made a stop at the Pow Wow Restaurant in Tucumcari after a stop that morning in Las Vegas.

It was part of his "Ronchetti on the Road" tour where he sought to visit all 33 of New Mexico's counties in 10 days. Ronchetti also was scheduled to visit Portales, Clovis and Hobbs that day.

After shaking hands throughout the dining room, Ronchetti spoke for about 15 minutes to a crowd of more than 80 people.

He insisted "we will win" Tuesday but implored conservative-leaning Quay County residents not to take their votes for granted. Ronchetti said "a few thousand votes" would decide the race this week.

It was Ronchetti's first appearance in Tucumcari since June. He had been scheduled to show at a Republican pancake breakfast in August at the Pow Wow, but he bowed out to make an appearance at a GOP rally in Carlsbad that weekend with a possible presidential candidate, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.