By the #s: New Mexico's growing independent voter base

The number of New Mexico voters who opted not to register with a political party has steadily increased over the last year, ahead of the state’s first-ever semi-open primary.

The June 2 primary election marks the first time that “decline to state” voters — ones unaffiliated with a political party — don’t have to register with a major political party to cast ballots in those parties’ primary races to choose candidates for the general election ballot. In New Mexico, only the major parties, which are the Republican and Democratic parties, appear on primary ballots.

Advocates who pushed the Legislature in 2025 to allow unaffiliated voters into the primary say they are still trying to identify which local elections could be the most affected by the change. They are also still trying to determine how much of the increase in unaffiliated voters can be attributed to people registering that way for the first time versus changing from Democrat or Republican to “decline to state.”

Sila Avcil is co-founding executive director of New Mexico Voters First, a nonprofit seeking to expand voter access. She said roughly a dozen people have approached her in the last year saying they changed their registrations from Republican or Democrat to “decline to state.”



https://sourcenm.com/2026/03/30/by-the-s-new-mexicos-growing-independent-voter-base/