New Mexico voted more or less as democrat as Colorado and Virginia did in 2020 and before 2020 it was even more democrat than Colorado. While Colorado and Virginia have the fundamentals of a state favorable to Democrats, New Mexico doesn’t.
The state
- has a lot of white working class voters
Not really true; the white vote in Albuquerque and Santa Fe is quite well-off. Whites in eastern NM are lower income, true, but there aren't that many of them, and rural whites being conservative is nothing new. There's also a degree of some of the lower-income, lower-education white voters being culturally Democratic (and not traditional "white working class"), especially in the post-hippie communities in the north of the state. Being "white working class" in the West doesn't necessarily translate to being Republican, either, unlike in the East, due to different political histories; see Butte-Silver Bow, Montana.
- large number of Hispanic working class voters
Indicative of being Democratic so not meaningful.
- not very educated in comparison to other states
Mainly because of much higher Hispanic and Native American populations than any other state; the white population is quite educated.
- Albuquerque is nowhere near as large as Denver, Phoenix, San Antonio, Vegas, other western big cities
Lots of smaller western cities are quite Democratic as well; you have to look at demographics. And Albuquerque is more Hispanic than any of the cities you named except San Antonio.
- NM still has plenty of small towns, rural areas
Most of the population is still in the cities, and a lot of the rural areas are heavily Hispanic and/or Native American, which helps offset the conservative rural white vote. Rural and small-town Hispanics and Native Americans are solidly Democratic in other states, too. There are also some hippie-white rural votes in the north of the state.
- produces oil and is not what you would consider an “environmentalist state/ green energy state”
The oil industry is not that important to most of the voters. The oil and gas producing areas are quite Republican but just aren't that big.
Why is it so democratic?
See above.
