The House Chambers inside the Roundhouse on Jan. 10, 2024. (Photo by Anna Padilla for Source NM)
Republicans flipped three seats in the New Mexico Legislature, according to the latest voting tallies Wednesday from the Secretary of State’s Office, but the majority in both chambers still belongs to Democrats.
In the Senate, Republicans Jay Block and Gabriel Ramos won open seats that previously belonged to Democrats. Democrats also won a previously Republican seat once held by Sen. Joshua Sanchez, who will be replaced by Sen. Angel Charley.
The Election day results mean a net gain of one seat in the Senate, bringing the new party breakdown 26 Democrats and 16 Republicans when the Legislature convenes early next year.
Block won Senate District 12, which Sen. Gerald Ortiz y Pino represented before he retired and the Albuquerque-area seat was heavily redrawn in redistricting in 2021. Ramos won District 28, which covers parts of Silver City, Lordsburg and Deming. Sen. Correa Hemphill, a Democrat, used to represent that area but stepped down after the June primary.
In the House, Democrat Rep. Tara Jaramillo lost her race to Republican Rebecca Dow. That means there will be 44 Democrats to 26 Republicans in the House.
This year, there were 10 contested Senate races and 32 contested House races. The rest were uncontested.
See maps here of the contested races in both chambers, plus more information below about eight noteworthy House and Senate races.
Noteworthy races
State Senate District 9
A contentious race for a Senate district near Albuquerque came to an end late Tuesday night, with Democrat Cindy Nava earning 55% of the vote and beating Republican Audrey Trujillo, who got 45%.
Nava will become one of the only beneficiaries of the 2012 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals to be elected to office. The former Biden administration official’s parents brought her to the United States when she was 7, and she’s since become a United States citizen.
Before running for the District 9 seat, Trujillo unsuccessfully ran Secretary of State in 2022. She falsely claimed back then that former President Donald Trump won New Mexico during his failed 2020 presidential bid. In fact, the former President lost New Mexico by about 100,000 votes.
Heading into Tuesday, Nava greatly outraised her opponent. As of the latest campaign filing reports, Nava raised about $277,000, and Trujillo raised a little more than $65,000.
Senate District 9 is mostly located in Sandoval County, with part of it in Bernalillo County. It is bounded by Algodones to the north, Sandia Pueblo to the south, Placitas to the east and part of Rio Rancho to the west.
Trujillo and Nava both threw their hats in the District 9 race after Sen. Brenda McKenna, a Democrat, stepped down after one term.
State Senate District 12
Republican Jay Block defeated Democrat Phillip Ramirez with 53%% of the vote, according to preliminary results from the New Mexico Secretary of State’s Office.
Senate District 12 includes the western part of Rio Rancho, an Albuquerque suburb.
Block in June won the Republican nomination over Candance Gould.
From his seat on the Sandoval County Commission, Block voted against certifying the 2020 election results.
Incumbent Sen. Gerald Ortiz y Pino (D-Albuquerque), who was elected before the district was redrawn in 2021, did not run for reelection.
Ramirez in 2021 ran for Albuquerque City Council.
State Senate District 28
Republican Gabriel Ramos garnered 56% of the vote and defeated Democratic candidate Chris Ponce, with 44%, in a bid for the bootheel District 28.
The bootheel district which includes Hidalgo, Grant and Luna Counties was held by former Democratic Sen. Siah Correa Hemphill. Ponce, a Grant County commissioner, was nominated by the Democratic party after Correa Hemphill announced her withdrawal from the race in May.
Ramos, formerly a Democrat, was appointed to the vacant seat in 2019. Ramos was one of five Democrats breaking with the party to vote in 2020 against removing a decades-old defunct law limiting abortion. Ramos was ousted in the 2020 Democratic primary by Correa Hemphill, who made abortion rights a central part of her campaign.
Winners are decided in over half of New Mexico’s legislative races, since no one ran against them
State Representative District 11
Despite a rare challenge, the speaker of the state House of Representatives has kept his seat and gavel after Tuesday’s election.
Rep. Javier Martínez (D-Albuquerque) moved 75% of voters, beating Republican Bart Kinney III who kept just 25%.
Martínez was the only member of Democratic leadership in the state House and Senate to face a contested general election this cycle. He’s amassed more than $430,000 in contributions since being elected to the House, much of which he’s donated to other campaigns for incumbent Democrats. That’s compared with Kinney’s roughly $30,000.
Kinney, an insurance agent and broker, focused his campaign on addressing crime and protecting Second Amendment rights.
Martínez was elected to the state House in 2014 and became House Speaker in 2021.
He’ll preside over the House for what promises to be a unique, 60-day legislative session early next year, in which the Legislature might have an acrimonious fight with Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham over crime and related issues.
The Legislature this summer declined to take up a slate of measures the governor supported as she sought to get tougher on crime, including strengthening criminal penalties and making it easier for police to arrest those with mental health issues and drug addictions.
State Representative District 22
One of the state House’s most prominent supporters of former President Donald Trump kept her House seat representing mountain towns outside of Albuquerque.
Democrats will keep legislative control in New Mexico. But by how much? Results are coming in late.
Rep. Stefani Lord, a Republican, has been in the state House since 2021 and earned 56% of the vote. She faced two general-election opponents, one a Democrat and one independent.
Democrat Fred Ponzlov accused Lord of engaging “in political stunt after political stunt to get press coverage, instead of working to improve life within her district.” He cited her effort to impeach the governor and eliminate background checks for almost all gun purchases.
Lord attended Trump’s rally in Albuquerque last week and claimed on national television that the president had a shot at winning New Mexico this year, even though Vice President Kamala Harris has consistently led here by 7-8 percentage points.
Zachary Withers, an independent candidate, describes himself as a farmer in the East Mountains who wanted to focus his campaign on food sovereignty, the efficient use of water resources, helping small businesses and reducing bureaucracy.
State House District 36
Democrat Nathan Small will keep his seat in the New Mexico House of Representatives after beating Republican challenger Kimberly Skaggs for the second time. Small earned 52% of the vote compared to Skaggs’ 48%.
The race for House District 36 involved some of the highest spending of any state legislative race this year. Small spent just over $196,000 this campaign, the most of any state legislator, according to the Secretary of State’s Office. Skaggs was the fifth highest spender at about $142,700 this election.
Skaggs previously ran for Senate District 36 against Jeff Steinborn in 2020 and lost. She has run against Small twice, first in 2022 and now in 20224, losing both general elections.
Small has represented much of rural Doña Ana County since 2017. His district also includes the Picacho area of Las Cruces and the Village of Doña Ana. With this win, Small will also continue his role as chair of the House Appropriations and Finance Committee this upcoming legislative session and vice chair of the Interim Legislative Finance Committee.
State House District 38
Rebecca Dow will once again represent House District 38 after defeating Democratic incumbent Tara Jaramillo with 52% of the vote.
Dow previously represented the district from 2017 through the end of 2022. Jaramillo succeeded Dow as representative in 2023 after Dow chose not seek reelection and instead ran as a Republican candidate for New Mexico governor. She was defeated in the 2022 June primary by Mark Ronchetti.
Jaramillo and Dow were the top two campaign finance earners this election cycle, with Jaramillo raising about $159,200 and Dow raising about $154,400. Dow was the fourth highest campaign spender in the state legislature elections this year spending about $149,500.
The makeup of the district has changed a lot since Dow left office. Previously, the district included most of Truth or Consequences and Silver City. Redistricting in 2023 moved Silver City into a new district. House District 38 now encompasses portions of northern Las Cruces and stretches north to Hatch, Truth or Consequences and a portion of Socorro.
State Representative District 53
Democrat Sarah Silva will be the next state representative for District 53, according to the preliminary results available Wednesday afternoon.
But it’s still very close: Silva was up by 129 votes of 9,429 counted so far. Elections officials said they’d finish counting Doña Ana County’s absentee ballots by 6 p.m. Wednesday.
The margin separating Silva and her Republican opponent Elizabeth Winterrowd amounts to 1.3% of the votes counted. An automatic recount occurs if that margin falls below 1%.
As it stands now, Silva has 51% of the vote and has 49%.
The race for portions of Eastern Las Cruces, Doña Ana County and Chaparral in Otero County is one that state GOP leaders said they wanted to focus on flipping. Winterrowd is a special education teacher from Organ.
Silva, a community organizer and coach, was picked by the Democratic party to replace candidate Jon Hill on the ballot after his withdrawal from the race in August. He died shortly after endorsing Silva to replace him. Hill had ousted incumbent Rep. Willie Madrid (D-Chaparral) in the June primary.