This week, an incumbent Republican New Mexico lawmaker won a critical victory in getting her name back on the ballot.
The New Mexico Supreme Court unanimously ruled that Rep. Rebecca Dow (R-Truth or Consequences) will appear on the June 2 primary ballot after a Democrat who previously held Dow’s seat in the state House of Representatives accused her in court of improperly filing screenshots of the signatures her campaign gathered, rather than the nominating petitions required under state law.
Dow celebrated the win on the front steps of the Supreme Court with a jubilant crowd of supporters and reminded them that the fight is not over — she is set to face Democrat David Mooney in the Nov. 3 general election.
“We still got to win in November,” she told her supporters. “Onward and upward.”
The numbers game
Emerson College Polling/KRQE News 13 this week released a poll that showed former U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland leading the Democratic race to be New Mexico’s next governor over Bernalillo County District Attorney Sam Bregman by 16 points while more than one-third of voters remained undecided.
Both camps hailed the results as a win.
Haaland’s campaign cited it as evidence that “by every metric, this race is over.”
Bregman’s campaign, on the other hand, said that Haaland’s lead has shrunk from 49 points a year ago to 16 points this week.
“The ‘commanding lead’ the establishment was counting on has evaporated, and we are within striking distance,” spokesperson Joanie Griffin wrote.
The poll also reported that 61% of Republican voters are still undecided in that party’s three-way gubernatorial primary.
In a recent sit-down interview with Source NM, Republican candidate Doug Turner acknowledged being a latecomer to the race and shared his vision for New Mexico if he wins the party’s nomination.
See who has financial edge in contested NM House primaries
Candidates in contested primaries for the New Mexico House of Representatives raised more than $500,000 since October as they fight for their party’s nomination, according to recent Secretary of State filings.
All 70 seats in the state House are up for reelection this year, though only 16 have contested primaries.
Incumbent Rep. Joseph Sanchez (D-Alcalde) raised the most money of state House candidates this primary election cycle, according to a Source NM review of filings. He earned nearly $60,000 in 41 donations, with companies like Occidental Petroleum, Philip Morris and Devon Energy each providing $6,200, the maximum donation allowable under state law.
Sanchez faces challenger Nancy Wright, a pediatrician in Las Vegas who received a little more than $12,000 from 42 donations, largely from individual donors. At $72,278, the Democratic primary for House District 40, which covers parts of Mora and San Miguel counties, is the most expensive this election cycle.
Explore Source NM’s interactive map of contested primaries and the money funnelling into them below.
House District 16 immigration raid
New Mexico state legislators don’t have any jurisdiction over federal immigration actions, but the issue made it into a recent campaign email sent out by state Rep. Yanira Gurrola (D-Albuquerque). Gurrola faces challenger Marsella Duarte Serna in the June 2 primary. The two ran against each other in 2024 as well.
In the email, Gurrola described an early morning arrest of three neighbors last month in her Albuquerque West Mesa neighborhood by federal immigration agents as proof of a “local issue, not one that’s happening far away.”
“No matter what, it was an excessive display of force, like 12 cars, armed people and an armoured car.” Gurrola said in an interview with Source NM.
Gurrola said she had no real relationship with the neighbors, describing their interactions as casual greetings. She characterized the raid as an “excessive display of force” that involved a dozen cars, an armoured vehicle and armed agents.
In videos given to Source NM, agents armed in vests emblazoned with bright yellow letters of Police and HSI walk through the front yard, some masked, with long guns slung at their sides. Photos of the street showed at least a dozen vehicles parked around the house.
A request for comment to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security about the arrests was not returned.
The arrests followed a request from U.S. Homeland Security Investigations for a warrant in federal district court. The affidavit for the warrant only mentioned one man, 24-year old Cleyver Garcia. Garcia, according to the warrant, was part of a human-smuggling ring, with his name and phone number tied to accounts who had threatened a Guatemala man they had brought into the U.S. in 2025. He was in the U.S. illegally, according to the affidavit.
The warrant included the possible seizure of ledgers, records, photographs, firearms or proceeds from the unlawful activity, including currency, jewelry or other assets.
The warrant did not mention either of the two other people who lived in the house, whom Gurrola also saw agents arrest.
Gurrola described her fear interacting with the agents to Source NM, recounting her hands shaking when she asked to see a copy of the warrant while texting with House leadership.
“I got scared, I have an accent, I’m from Mexico, my neighbors were worried it was my house,” she said.
Additionally, she said while one of the officers was polite and identified himself when showing the warrant, she described tense or “sarcastic” responses from other officers to bystanders.
In her campaign email, Gurrola wrote that she is working to connect her neighbors with legal resources “and to make sure their rights are protected. But the truth is, no one should have to face this alone, and no family should have to live in fear like this.”
She also linked to local immigration resources detailing how to respond to federal immigration agents.
Endorsement rush
It was a busy week for endorsements in nearly three dozen New Mexico races.
The LGBTQ+ advocacy organization Equality New Mexico endorsed Haaland in the gubernatorial race, saying in an announcement that she is a “reliable and steadfast champion for LGBTQ communities in New Mexico.” New Mexico Senate President Pro Tempore Mimi Stewart (D-Albuquerque) and Sen. Jeff Steinborn (D-Las Cruces) also endorsed Haaland this week, citing her willingness to collaborate on education policy and the outdoor recreation industry.
Conservation Voters New Mexico, through its political action committee, endorsed state Rep. Matthew McQueen in the three-way Democratic primary for the state commissioner of public lands, who manages 9 million acres of state trust lands and another 13 million acres of public mineral rights in the New Mexico State Land Office.
McQueen, who has worked to reform the state’s wildlife management agency and to increase oil and gas royalty rates, said in a statement that he would work to “fulfill the land office’s mission of funding our public schools and institutions for the benefit of all New Mexicans,” if elected.
“Conservation has been the central thread of my life, beginning simply as a kid who loved wildlife. I have fought my entire adult life – personally, professionally, politically – to protect our natural environment,” McQueen said.
In response, opposing Democratic candidate Juan de Jesus Sanchez, a former political director for U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), told Source NM that he has the support of the “state’s greatest climate and conservation champions,” including Heinrich.
“I am proud to be the only candidate in the race to have the support of both of New Mexico’s teachers’ unions [as] this office funds much of our education system,” Sanchez said.
Jonas Moya, a Biden-era appointee to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s New Mexico Farm Service Agency and the third Democrat seeking the office, told Source NM he was “disappointed” he didn’t earn the CVNM endorsement.
CVNM’s action fund also endorsed 32 Democratic candidates for the state House of Representatives in primary races, although the majority of them are running unopposed. Of the races with contested primaries, CVNM endorsed only incumbents: Reps. Joseph Hernandez in District 4; Patricia Roybal Caballero in House District 13; Miguel García in House District 14; Yanira Gurrola in House District 16; Joy Garratt in House District 29; Elizabeth Diane Torres-Velásquez in House District 30 and Michelle Pauline Abeyta in House District 69.
Universal childcare lawsuit
GOP gubernatorial candidate Duke Rodriguez, the cannabis CEO who served as a cabinet secretary in Gov. Gary Johnson’s administration, said he thinks Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham is running afoul of an old state Supreme Court decision in which Rodriguez himself was accused of unlawfully implementing a state program “without seeking legislative approval.”
Rodriguez filed a lawsuit last week against the Early Childhood Education and Care Department secretary and claimed that Lujan Grisham unlawfully implemented New Mexico’s statewide universal childcare program in 2025 before there was legislation to fund and support it.
In response, a spokesperson for Lujan Grisham said the lawsuit “makes clear that Mr. Rodriguez has a fundamental misunderstanding [of] how state government works.”
“He states that ECECD did not have the authority to undergo rulemaking regarding universal childcare. They do. He states that ECECD did not have the funding to implement the program when they did their rulemaking. They did,” Communications Director Michael Coleman wrote to Source NM. “That is why the program was operational in December — before the 2026 legislative session started. Perhaps more importantly, the lawsuit ignores that the Legislature passed Senate Bill 241, which codified the program and its future funding into law. The governor is confident that the courts will reject his meritless claims.”
Rodriguez, for his part, rejects the governor’s office’s argument. He said SB241’s passage doesn’t remedy the problem because it did not have an emergency clause, meaning it won’t go into effect until May 20.
“As we sit here at this exact moment in April, it’s not the law of the land,” Rodriguez said.
