The KUNM news team is launching a candidate guide to help our community stay informed on all the candidates, bonds, and questions on the ballot this November. To make it even better, we want to hear what’s important to you, including what questions you have for the candidates. So KUNM’s Florian Knowles put together a survey. Responses have already been coming in, but we’re keen to hear from more of you. So KUNM’s Jeanette DeDios sat down with Florian to hear about what he’s learned so far from you – our community – and started our interview by asking about what’s already included in the guide.
KNOWLES: So, we're going to have all the statewide offices. So, we're talking governor, we're talking treasurer, auditor, attorney general, and secretary of state. And then we're also going to include all the competitive races for the state house. We're going to include the U.S. House, Senate, of course. And we're also going to include judges for the counties that we cover. We’ll potentially even include local city measures for Santa Fe and Albuquerque, depending on my capacity. I'm kind of the main person heading this up, so it's kind of a lot. We've got a lot of candidates, a lot of questions. But I'm trying to do the best that I can to include up and down the ballot what's important to people.
KUNM: Yeah, that certainly does seem like a lot of work. I mean, you'll also be including bonds and like constitutional amendments as well, right?
KNOWLES: Yes. There are actually quite a few really important ones. One of them includes paying legislators. We're the only state in the country, I believe, that does not pay legislators. They only get a per diem for whenever they work. So this would give them the median New Mexican salary. There's also another one that would eliminate the pocket veto for the governor. I believe that's very popular with lawmakers, since, you know there's always that tension of they pass stuff and then it gets vetoed or pocket vetoed, and with a veto they at least get a reason why pocket veto –it just kind of remains untouched and then expires and never becomes law.
KUNM: What are you asking from our listeners?
KNOWLES: So we want to hear from listeners about what questions they have just about the election in general. We're going to have a page that we're going to update with your questions. But then we also want to hear about what questions they have for candidates. We've gotten a lot of great responses so far, and I've given these responses to some of our reporters here, and you can really see the wheels turning in their brain, just about like all these different perspectives that people have from across the state, across these different demographics. They realize at least that “Oh this topic they didn't think it could potentially apply” to whatever race they're covering. But then they realize, “Wait, it does,” and they just know that this is what people want from them.
KUNM: Can you talk about some of the reports we've already done based on survey responses?
KNOWLES: For the primary election, we did a similar survey, and so someone asked, ‘Hey, what does the land commissioner even do?’ And then also about all these potential issues that might come up during the primary as well.
KUNM: And specifically what we're seeing now – the survey’s been up – were there any responses that have surprised you?
KNOWLES: Just kind of the quantity of different responses. There have been certain issues that I've known have been hot-button issues, but some of them come up constantly over and over again that I thought “Oh, this is like on top of everyone's minds right now.” Like, seeing the community responses and seeing, hey, these are like the main things that come up. It kind of reshifts my focus and reshifts like, I think, any journalist's focus about, you know, what's important to the community.
KUNM: So, how can our listeners participate?
KNOWLES: We have a link on our homepage. It says, “Your voice matters.” You can click on that and it'll be a Google form. And then, if you don't want to go there, if you want to go directly to the survey, you can go to bit.ly/kunmelection. That'll take you directly to the survey. We also have it linked in our Linktree, in our socials.
KUNM: And tell me this: why is it important for them to do this survey?
KNOWLES: If you don't do this survey, you kind of don't tell us what's important. We want to be relevant to you. That's the point of news. We want to inform you and we want to answer your questions. And so, when you give us your questions, like this is a really cool way to kind of bridge this gap. You can connect with us and we get to actually see the community's responses.
KUNM: And to that, why is it important for New Mexicans to be civically engaged at the local level?
KNOWLES: A lot of things are really determined at the local level. We see a lot of controversies popping up with different things, whether it's the sheriff's office or the county commissioner, there are different things that people are wanting them to answer to. And so, if you're upset about something or if you like what your local officials are doing, you know, you can make your voice heard at the ballot box.
KUNM: Well, thank you so much, Florian.
KNOWLES: Of course!
There is still time to go to fill out our survey. Support for this coverage comes from Thornburg Foundation.
