Albuquerque, New Mexico — New Mexico residents will choose Democratic and Republican candidates for governor on Tuesday, as the state faces rising rates of violent crime, chronically underperforming schools and cuts in education spending. Federal programs Which are considered major safety nets for residents.
Despite the ongoing challenges New Mexico faces, the primary comes at a promising time for the next governor, who is likely to be a Democrat. Oil prices have risen globally since the Iran war, resulting in tax revenues flowing into state coffers. New Mexico is the nation’s second-largest oil-producing state after Texas, and industry revenues fund a range of progressive social programs that include Comprehensive child care.
For the first time, the primary will be open to independent voters. State Semi-open platformThe law, signed by Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham last year, allows about 23% of New Mexico voters who do not belong to a political party to request a Democratic or Republican ballot.
While voters will decide primaries for three congressional seats, a U.S. Senate seat and a long list of statewide offices, the gubernatorial race is the main attraction.
Former US Secretary of the Interior Deb Haalandwho also served a term in the U.S. House of Representatives and as a prosecutor in Albuquerque Sam Bregman Candidates are seeking the Democratic nomination to replace Lujan Grisham, who has reached her term limit.
Haaland, a Laguna Pueblo native, could become the first Native American woman elected governor of the United States. She has focused her campaign on reducing costs to families, emphasizing her ancestral roots in the state and touting her experience working in the nation’s capital.
She leads Bregman in fundraising by a wide margin in a campaign that has become increasingly controversial. Haaland’s campaign highlighted Bregman’s personal wealth and put him out of touch with ordinary New Mexico residents. Haaland declined several opportunities to debate Bregman, who said his experience as a prosecutor puts him in the best position for Democrats to chart a new course in a state that has struggled for years with high crime rates.
His campaign also criticized Haaland after her name appeared in Jeffrey Epstein’s files. She flew on a private plane chartered by one of Epstein’s companies during her failed bid for lieutenant governor in 2014. That flight to a fundraising meeting in Washington, D.C., was paid for by Gary King, her lieutenant at the time. The king’s family had it Epstein sold a farm In New Mexico two decades ago.
Haaland said she was unaware of Epstein’s role in arranging the trip and had never met him.
Bregman, the Bernalillo County district attorney and father of Chicago Cubs All-Star Alex Bregman, has promised to stand up to the Trump administration on issues like health care and immigration.
Three candidates are competing in the Republican primary, with the winner facing an uphill battle to claim a state that has trended increasingly leftward in recent years. Democrats have won every statewide elected office since 2017, and it has been decades since a Republican presidential candidate won the state.
Greg Hall He was mayor of the fast-growing city of Rio Rancho, and pointed to his leadership there as a blueprint for how he would govern, promising to attract major employers to the state. Duke Rodrigueza former Cabinet secretary under former Republican Gov. Gary Johnson turned cannabis CEO, has focused on stabilizing the state’s health care system, which faces financial problems and a severe doctor shortage. Public relations professional Doug Turner has focused on plans to lift the state’s public education system from the bottom of the national rankings.
While Hall and Turner have not linked their campaigns to the MAGA movement, Rodriguez recently received a cease-and-desist letter from a law firm representing President Donald Trump over the “deceptive use” of Trump’s image in campaign materials.
The winner of the general election scheduled for November will inherit Oil windfall In the state budget that has led to competing ideas about how best to use it — from cutting one-time checks to taxpayers to funding tax breaks that would mostly help low-income residents to eliminating the state income tax.
The state’s reliance on fossil fuels to fund its programs has also been proven Politically sensitive For Democrats.