State GOP picks U.S. Senate, House candidates

Mar. 2—State Republicans picked their candidates for U.S. House and Senate Saturday, and with just one candidate for each seat, the four primary candidates will almost certainly be the party's general election nominees as well.

At a preprimary convention on Saturday that was closed to the press, Republican Party leaders from across New Mexico picked federal candidates to place on the June 4 primary election ballot.

Businesswoman Nella Domenici, daughter of former U.S. Sen. Pete Domenici, will be the GOP's Senate candidate taking on U.S Sen. Martin Heinrich. In the competitive 2nd Congressional District, former Republican U.S. Rep. Yvette Herrell of Alamogordo is seeking a rematch with U.S. Rep. Gabe Vasquez, a Las Cruces Democrat who narrowly beat her in 2022.

Sharon Clahchischilliage of Gadii'ahi, a Navajo community near Farmington, is challenging incumbent U.S. Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández, a Santa Fe Democrat who is running for her third two-year term representing the 3rd District, which includes Northern and much of Eastern New Mexico.

In the Albuquerque-area 1st District, Louie Sanchez is challenging U.S. Rep. Melanie Stansbury.

Every federal elected office in New Mexico is currently held by Democrats. However, state GOP chairman Steve Pearce expressed optimism that all four candidates could win in the November election.

"[We have] a lot of females running this time as Republicans," he said in an interview after the convention. "That reaches a demographic that's always hard for us, so we feel good about November," he said.

Domenici "hit the ball out of the park" at the convention, he added.

"I will tell you that I've watched politics for a long time in New Mexico, [and] I've never felt the brushfire of excitement that ran across the state when [Nella] Domenici announced" her candidacy, Pearce said.

Pearce expects Republican political committees to contribute money to her campaign: "I think that she's going to raise a lot of money."

Domenici, whom Democrats have criticized for giving few live interviews, did not participate in media interviews with some candidates after the convention. A spokesman for her campaign, Paul Smith, did not respond to a request for an interview Saturday afternoon.

Born in Albuquerque, Domenici spent much of her career on the East Coast, including as the chief financial officer of the investment firm Bridgewater Associates. She has lived in Santa Fe full time for about three years and will face off against Heinrich, who is seeking a third six-year term.

Heinrich last won with 54% of the vote in 2018; Republican candidate Mick Rich received only 31% while Libertarian Gary Johnson won 15%.

Other Republican candidates had filed to run for the seat but "ended up not pursuing it enough," Pearce said. That includes Bernalillo County Sheriff Manny Gonzales, a former Democrat, who failed to collect enough signatures to appear on the Republican primary ballot.

In a race sure to be closely watched around the nation and that could prove pivotal for control of Congress, former one-term Rep. Herrell will vie to regain her seat. Vasquez beat out Herrell by only 1,350 votes — less than 1% — in 2022 to win the seat representing much of Southern New Mexico.

In 2020, Herrell won the seat with 54% of the vote, but redistricting after the 2020 U.S. Census changed the boundaries of the 2nd District to make it more Democratic. The state GOP unsuccessfully challenged the constitutionality of the new maps, passed by the heavily Democratic state Legislature and signed into law by Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham in 2021; the state Supreme Court upheld the new boundaries last year.

The state's 1st and 3rd congressional districts are widely seen as Democratic strongholds.

But Pearce said redistricting will make those races "much more competitive." And the Republican candidates running for each district, who are Navajo and Hispanic, will be able to make their races "extremely competitive" by reaching Native and Hispanic voters, he said.

Leger Fernández won with 58% to 59% of the vote in 2020 and 2022. Clahchischilliage, who served in the state Legislature from 2013 to 2018, said she decided to enter the race to bring attention to rural, community issues at the federal level.

"I live in an ultra-rural area where our infrastructure is not consistent," she said. "The progressive agenda ... won't fit the issues that we have in District 3, so that is why I'm running."

Sanchez, an owner of Albuquerque's Calibers shooting range and gun stores who has also worked in the health care industry for decades will run for the 1st District seat currently held by Stansbury, an Albuquerque Democrat. Stansbury assumed the position in 2021 after winning the Democratic nomination in a special election to replace now-U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland. She then won the 2022 election with 56% of the vote.

Sanchez said Democrats have ruled New Mexico for decades, "and the only thing that it has led us down to is just, basically, destitution in a lot of our neighborhoods.

"Being Hispanic and being with my family over the holidays, this is the first time I have ever heard them actually say that they will vote Republican, and when you ask them why, they're going to tell you the exact same thing that that you're hearing on national polls" — high inflation, he said. "They're spending most of their disposable income just paying for the essentials of life."

Sen. Ben Ray Luján, who was elected in 2020, will not come up for reelection until 2026.

Republican Party leaders on Saturday did not choose Steve Jones, a retired accountant living in Ruidoso, to appear on the Republican primary ballot for the 1st District. He could potentially get on the ballot running against Sanchez if he can come up with about 20,000 petition signatures by March 19, said Ash Soular, a spokeswoman for the state GOP.