Today we set our sights on the state's 2nd Congressional District as we partner with the
Almanac of American Politics whose 2024 edition will be released at the end of this month and includes brand new profiles of every member of Congress as well as all Governors.
Readers of the blog can receive 15 percent off the new edition by using the code NMPOLITICS15 here.
So without further ado let's check in with the "bible" of American politics for an exclusive and detailed look at our state's new southern congressional district.
Gabe Vasquez of New Mexico, who defeated first-term Republican Rep. Yvette Herrell, had experience in Democratic politics and with liberal interest groups. He and Greg Landsman of Ohio were the only two successful House Democratic challengers in 2022. In his slender victory, Vasquez got a big boost from redistricting, which added a Democratic portion of Albuquerque to what had been a Republican-leaning district. The outcome was the third
consecutive election in which the district switched partisan control.
Born in El Paso Texas and raised across the Rio Grande in Ciudad Juarez Mexico, he saw the cross-border connections of families and businesses. Vasquez got a bachelor’s degree from New Mexico State University and after graduation, he joined the Las Cruces Bulletin, where he became business editor. He served as executive director of the Las Cruces Hispanic
Chamber of Commerce. For two years, he was a field representative for Sen. Martin Heinrich.
In 2015, Vasquez became vice president of communications for First Focus, a Washington based advocacy group for children. He then had stints in New Mexico with three environmental groups: the Wildlife Federation, the Wilderness Society and the Western Conservation Foundation. He focused on the threats that climate change posed to New Mexico, including catastrophic floods.
In 2017, Vasquez was elected to the Las Cruces City Council, where he advocated legalization of cannabis and reform of liquor licenses. As his term was ending in 2021, he said that he would challenge Herrell, regardless of the redistricting outcome. Although the district has mostly elected Republicans in recent years, Democrats have had occasional success
in congressional campaigns. And they used their control of the Legislature to strengthen those prospects. Vasquez won the Democratic primary, 76%-24%, against Darshan Patel, a physician.
Herrell, who tied herself closely to President Donald Trump, in 2020 defeated Democratic Rep. Xochitl Torres Small in a rematch, 54%-46%; in an open-seat contest two years earlier, Herrell lost, 51%-49%. She was the first Native American woman elected to Congress as a Republican. But redistricting jeopardized Herrell’s reelection prospects by reversing Trump’s 2020 win in the district. In their October debate, Vasquez spoke in Spanish several times and noted his family’s history as immigrants. He cited “the American dream” in pressing the need for affordable healthcare, fair wages and abortion rights.
Herrell said that illegal immigration remained a problem that needed to be solved. “We can’t afford more of the same,” she said. Herrell cited criticisms that Vasquez had made about the oil and gas industry and said that she sought to “unleash American energy.” Vasquez responded that he “favors unlocking the renewable energy potential” and that oil and gas companies need to be held “accountable.” Each candidate spent more than $3 million on the contest.
National Republicans spent $2 million on behalf of Herrell, more than twice the amount Democrats spent for Vasquez. In his narrow victory, Vasquez led Herrell by nearly 10,000 votes in each of the two population centers: Las Cruces-based Dona Ana County and Albuquerque-based Bernalillo. He took 4 of the other 13 counties.
2nd District
Las Cruces:
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| Vasquez & Herrell |
Southeastern New Mexico is a disparate landscape: endless sagebrush-strewn acreage and then, suddenly, 9,000-foot mountain peaks rising along the Continental Divide. (The Robledo Mountains, says the Smithsonian Institution, are the world’s greatest repository of pre-dinosaur-era fossil tracks.)
The eastern part of this region—places like Lovington and Hobbs—speaks with a Texas twang rather than a northern New Mexico lilt. Surrounding Lea County, where the population grew 20 percent from 2010 to 2020, accounts for more than half of the oil production of New Mexico, which in 2021 passed North Dakota to become the second-largest state producer in the nation.
Farther west is White Sands National Park, with its immaculate gypsum dunes and specially evolved animals with white coloration that allows them to elude predators in the harsh environment. Virgin Galactic, a company started by billionaire Richard Branson, leased land near White Sands to build the nation’s first commercial spaceport (called Spaceport America). Despite initial setbacks, the $218 million facility has grown more active, with several dozen rocket launches. NASA has tested several new technologies, as have the Italian Space Agency and several American aerospace companies. . .
Las Cruces, New Mexico’s second-largest city, has grown at rates well above the statewide average, thanks to migrants from Mexico coming up the Rio Grande. For decades, Anglo and Mexican ranchers across the border spoke “the common language of cattle,” and communities frequently shared public services with their cross-border neighbors, not hindered by a wall or other major barrier. This largely empty 150-mile section of the U.S.-Mexico border remains sleepier than elsewhere. A long-term concern is that reduced water levels in the Upper Basin of the Rio Grande jeopardize farming and nearby communities, according to a report card by
the World Wildlife Fund in 2022.
The contrast is stark in Albuquerque, where growth is moving west of the city. In 2018, Bernalillo County approved the first phase of Santolina, a planned 22-square-mile development that within a few decades might house 90,000 residents and create 75,000 jobs, its promoters project. Critics continued to voice multiple concerns, including scant water resources and conflicts of interest by county officials. In March 2022, the developers suffered a setback when the county planning commission rejected their plan to speed up their timetable.
The 2nd District of New Mexico has typically covered the southern part of the state, reaching to Albuquerque’s southern suburbs. In 2020, the district voted for President Donald Trump, 55%-43%, a wider margin than the GOP wins in the two previous presidential elections.
Democratic-controlled redistricting in 2022 changed those dynamics in a swap with
the 1st District that added the western portion of Albuquerque and removed much of the southeastern quadrant of the state. Under the new map, Joe Biden won, 52%-46%. In the portion of Bernalillo that is new and takes in 27 percent of the district, Biden led, 62%-36%. He took Las Cruces-based Dona Ana County, which is 31 percent of the district, 58%-40%. The district grew to 60 percent Hispanic.
Next up: New Mexico's Third Congressional District.
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(c)NM POLITICS WITH JOE MONAHAN 2023
