In Santa Fe, voters headed to the polls on Tuesday to elect a new mayor using a ranked-choice voting system, marking only the second occasion this method has been employed for the mayoral race.
As residents navigated the ranked-choice voting system, they faced the challenge of selecting from a diverse slate of eight candidates.
The candidates vying for the position included Santa Fe County Commissioner Justin Greene, City Council Member Michael Garcia, former City Council Members Ronald Trujillo and JoAnne Coppler, New Mexico Finance Authority CFO Oscar Salazar Rodriguez, businesswoman Letitia Montoya, journalist Tarin Nix, and academic Jeanne O’Dean.
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Key issues dominating the campaign were affordable housing, crime, public safety, and homelessness. According to the Santa Fe New Mexican, Greene led in fundraising efforts, amassing a total of $130,837, with Coppler following at $90,161.
The ranked-choice voting system allows voters to rank candidates by preference. Initially, votes are allocated based on the first-choice preferences from the ballots. If no candidate secures over 50% of the votes, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated, and their votes are redistributed according to the voters’ subsequent preferences. This process repeats until a candidate achieves the necessary majority to win.
Polls in New Mexico close at 9 p.m. ET Tuesday. See results of the Santa Fe mayoral race in the tracker below:
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