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The Republican Party in New Mexico has found itself in a surprising predicament: it will not have a candidate on the ballot for the 2026 U.S. Senate election. This extraordinary situation leaves the incumbent Democrat, Ben Ray Luján, essentially unchallenged in his pursuit of a second term. This unprecedented absence marks a historical first for New Mexico since it achieved statehood, where a major political party has failed to contest a Senate race.
Luján, who secured his Senate seat in 2020, has established himself as a significant figure within the more progressive wing of the Democratic Party. His initial victory came by defeating Republican Mark Ronchetti, a former television meteorologist, by a margin of six percentage points. This was in a state where Democrats have a registration advantage of approximately two-to-one. Ronchetti emerged as the candidate to challenge Luján after winning a competitive three-way primary.
This election cycle, however, the sole Republican to enter the race, Christopher Vanden Heuvel from Rio Rancho, was disqualified by Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver. Vanden Heuvel failed to gather the 2,351 valid signatures required for candidacy and lacks a notable presence or campaign infrastructure, such as a candidate website.
The issue extends beyond individual candidate shortcomings, reflecting broader systemic challenges within the party. Other Republican hopefuls, such as gubernatorial candidate Belinda Robertson and Carlton Pennington, were similarly unable to meet signature requirements, underscoring organizational issues. Neither Robertson, a fitness instructor, nor Pennington, a businessman with aspirations to challenge Democrat Representative Melanie Stansbury, were considered top-tier contenders, though Robertson was seen as a potentially dynamic participant in the race.
The New Mexico Republican Party, or NMGOP, has been waning for some time. The party holds no statewide executive positions, lacks representation in Congress, and has minimal sway in a state legislature dominated by Democrats. New Mexico has not only a Democratic “trifecta”—control of the governorship and both legislative houses—but also a “quadrifecta,” with all five elected Supreme Court seats occupied by Democrats. While some have critiqued NMGOP Chairwoman Amy Barela for failing to recruit viable candidates or assist them in meeting candidacy requirements, the issues seem to echo broader systemic challenges seen in other states with diminished Republican influence. As a Maryland Republican myself, I’ve seen similar struggles, although occasionally we manage to elect a Republican governor to maintain some semblance of balance.
New Mexico’s Republican Party, or NMGOP, has been in decline for years, holding no statewide executive offices, no congressional seats, and minimal influence in the legislature, where Democrats own both the New Mexico House and Senate. We often use the term “trifecta” to describe states where one party controls the governorship and both houses of the legislature. In New Mexico, we’ve moved on to something that might be called a “quadrifecta.” The five elected Supreme Court seats are also filled by Democrats. I don’t know enough about New Mexico politics to criticize, as some have, the leadership of NMGOP Chairwoman Amy Barela for the failure to recruit viable candidates or, in this case, to assist candidates in gathering enough signatures to appear on the primary ballot. As a long-suffering Maryland Republican (though that suffering will end in the next two or three years when the last kid is launched), I see a lot of markers of the same systemic failure we suffer from, but we do a better job of disguising it with a quisling Republican governor on occasion.
It looks like Lujan will coast to reelection. His only opponent will be a guy named Matt Dodson running on the “Democratic Socialist” line. If Vanden Heuvel can’t manage to get fewer than 3,000 signatures to get on the ballot, then the odds of him running a successful write-in campaign are zero.
Lujan was an odds-on favorite to win, even had Vanden Heuvel made his way onto the general election ballot. That isn’t the point. Had he run a vigorous, though losing, campaign, at least he would have been able to tell New Mexicans that the GOP is alive and they don’t have to live in a one-party state. It’s obvious the NMGOP needs to retool and rebuild. That starts at the top. If the party leadership is just there to get invited to the right parties while studiously avoiding anything that could upset the political status quo, then New Mexico will look like California.
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