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.”
“There’s a lot of people that are like, ‘No, I’m choosing to be an independent, and now I can actually have my voice heard,” she said.
A Source NM review of monthly Secretary of State data suggests that the recent increase in “decline to state” voters is most attributable to people switching from Democrat or Republican, versus new registrations.
Between December 2024 and February 2026, roughly 25,000 more people registered as “decline to state,” but the state’s total number of registered voters increased by only 132 voters in that period.
Meanwhile, the percentage of Democrats statewide dropped slightly from 42% to 41%, from roughly 597,000 voters to 574,000, and the percentage of Republicans statewide dropped from 32% to 31%, from roughly 453,000 voters to about 443,000.
The increases in DTS voters happened most dramatically in the latter months of 2025, according to a Source NM review, and they happened across the state, in Democratic and Republican strongholds and in populous and rural counties.
The biggest percentage increase occurred in rural Quay County in eastern New Mexico between November and December 2025. In that month, the number of registered independents grew by 72 people, from 1,135 people to 1,207.
As of the latest Secretary of State figures, the two counties with the highest percentage of “decline to state” voters are Los Alamos and Doña County, which each have slightly over 30%.
Molly Shank, executive director of Common Cause, told Source NM that a coalition of nonprofit organizations is working to identify counties with high independent populations as it rolls out a publicity campaign this week.
The coalition plans to target outreach efforts in five such communities, which she said are “spread across the state” and the political spectrum, including Bernalillo, Los Alamos and Curry counties.
See a breakdown below of how the percentage of “decline to state” voters has changed since December 2024.
