Several northern New Mexico Republicans spent much of Monday determining who would be the best candidate to run against Amy Barela, who is seeking to return to her post as Republican Party of New Mexico chair in an upcoming election to determine who will lead the party through the November general election.
Barela on Saturday announced via social media that she was seeking to return as chair after a judge ordered her to leave the position in late May. The judge ruled that she violated party rules prohibiting a chairperson from running in a contested Republican primary election when she ran for local office on June 2, and ordered the party to elect a new chair within 30 days.
Barela ultimately narrowly lost her race against Jonathan Emery for the Otero County Commission, leaving her free to run again and serve the remainder of her term through December, after the November general election.
“No one else will be able to see this through to be able to flip New Mexico red by November,” she told Source NM on Monday. “My re-election means we focus on the election, and in December we can focus on the party.”
By Monday morning, four other Republicans — attorney Robert Aragon, Valencia County Republican Party Chair John Brenna, former House District 60 candidate Zac Anaya and conservative radio host Brandon Vogt — had announced they were also seeking to convince a majority of roughly 500 party officials statewide to elect them as the new chairperson.
But by Monday afternoon, Anaya had exited the race, and Brenna and Aragon were deciding between themselves who should continue running.
The jockeying between the three of them, they told Source NM in interviews Monday, is based on finding the best candidate to defeat Barela, whom they blame for the party’s failures to field several high-profile candidates in the November election and for attempting to stay on as chair in clear violation of party rules.
“If she is elected, it is a slap in the face to every northern New Mexican that’s not part of that coalition,” Anaya told Source NM on Monday, “showing that southern New Mexico has bullied their way to a chairmanship.”
Vogt told Source NM that he met with Aragon, Brenna and Anaya on Saturday to discuss who among them should take on Barela. He said he ultimately decided to stay in the race to help wrest control of the party from the “power structure” in southeastern New Mexico.
“The rest of the state, where you know you have some big cities — Albuquerque, Santa Fe — there’s still a lot of Republicans there, and they are getting ignored,” he said. “If the Republicans want to win a statewide race, you’re going to have to peel off the Democrats in those urban areas.”
The party’s State Central Committee has announced a closed-door vote to take place Saturday in Doña Ana County. Party rules require a quorum of at least two-thirds of voters and 22 of the state’s 33 counties to attend for a vote to be official.
Anaya told Source NM that only Aragon or Brenna can sew up intra-party divisions that have deepened over recent months and give Republican candidates, particularly gubernatorial candidate Gregg Hull, a shot at victory in November. He bowed out Monday to prevent dividing the votes, particularly among northern New Mexico Republicans, three ways, he said.
“Right now, with the way the party is behaving, we’ve given the Democrats everything they could possibly want. If we continue down this route and we don’t have the support of the party, the party stays divided and Gregg Hull loses by 20 points,” Anaya said. “The fact that we’re not giving him a fair shake because of this is pathetic.”
Hull, who is running against Democrat Deb Haaland in the governor’s race, told Source NM on Monday that he has no preference for a new Republican party chairperson.
“I just hope that they get it all figured out, and eventually figure out who’s going to lead the party forward,” he said.
Aragon and Brenna met for an hour Monday afternoon to decide who among them had the best shot of defeating Barela, they told Source NM. They could not agree at the end of the meeting, Brenna said, but will meet again over the next day or so to find a resolution.
Brenna told Source NM that the pair politely disagreed on how important being Hispanic is in convincing party members to vote for them against Barela. Both are Hispanic, Brenna noted, but Aragon “believes that being a person of Hispanic descent, that he’s more suited for the job of bringing more Hispanic people into the party.
“I myself am Hispanic, but I believe that including everybody together is the way to go,” he said. “New Mexico can never be red unless we include every single person in the state that wants to be part of the party.”
Aragon did not respond to Source NM’s request for comment about his meeting with Brenna, but he said before the meeting that the party will only succeed with a leader who brings stability, continuity and respect for the rule of law.
“We’re just a few months away from an election. So there is much work to do to bring the party together, and part of our first charge or duties is to a bring down the tension level, making sure that everyone knows that we’re on the same team, that we have common goals, that there are issues that we all have in common, whether you live in Albuquerque or you live in Jal: accountable government, accountability to taxpayers,” he said.
