Debra Haaland is on her way to a shot at becoming the nation’s first Native American woman in Congress.
The former state Democratic Party chair emerged the victor in what was, on paper at least, a six-way contest for a congressional seat left open by US Rep. Michelle Lujan Grisham, who vacated it to run for governor.
She overcame the closest competition from Damon Martinez, a former US attorney, and Antoinette Sedillo Lopez, an immigrant rights advocate and University of New Mexico law professor. Albuquerque City Councilor Pat Davis, Damian Lara and Paul Moya dropped out of the race before Election Day, with Davis endorsing Haaland.
Martinez got about 26 percent of votes and Sedillo Lopez about 21 percent.
Halaand, who earned about 41 percent of votes according to unofficial results, will face perennial Republican candidate Janice Arnold Jones, a former state representative and Albuquerque city councilor, and Libertarian Lloyd Princeton in the general election in November.
The race was a snoozer through much of the primary season, with few attacks and many pundits believing Haaland, Sedillo Lopez or Davis would take the contest. That shifted when Martinez began to surge in some candidates’ internal polls—largely on the strength of a series of ads run by his campaign and an outside veterans’ advocacy group.
The commercials played up Martinez’ time as US Attorney for the District of New Mexico and pitted the longtime prosecutor and military veteran against Donald Trump, the former reality TV star famous for his signature line, “You’re fired” on the NBC series The Apprentice , and who is currently president . Trump canned Martinez and more than 40 other US attorneys around the nation in the first few months of his presidency.
While the ads gave Martinez a boost—and some national attention—they also brought him in for criticism from his opponents and others who pointed out that Martinez’ firing was one of dozens in a house-cleaning nearly all presidents undertake after assuming office.
Martinez also took heat during primary debates for his role in a controversial undercover law enforcement operation run by the federal bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco Firearms and Explosives in Albuquerque in 2016. ATF agents arrested a highly disproportionate number of black people in the four-month sting, but few of the high-level gun and drug dealers officials said they were after.
Martinez oversaw the operation as US attorney and trumpeted its results at a news conference in 2016. He also offered the “sell” similar operations to federal prosecutors in other states, according to documents obtained by journalists.
In the campaign’s final days, Women Vote!, an outside group affiliated with the Democratic women’s advocacy outfit EMILY’s List, hit Martinez in an ad for failing to prosecute any of the dozens of Albuquerque police officers who fatally shot people under questionable circumstances between 2009 and 2014. Martinez was not US Attorney during most of the shootings, and the ad failed to mention the incredibly high bar federal prosecutors face in pursuing criminal charges against officers for on-duty shootings.
Haaland, an enrolled member of Laguna Pueblo, says she's looking forward to taking on the Trump regime.
“Tonight , New Mexico made history,” reads a statement she issued after several news organizationa declared her the winner. “Our win is a victory for working people, a victory for women, and a victory for everyone who has been sidelined by the billionaire class.”
Lonna Atkeson, political science professor at the University of New Mexico, noted the race was marked by a sprint to the political left.
"You've got a Democratic primary where everyone's jumping over each other almost to be the most progressive, left person there is, it seems to me. It seems there's some of that going on in that race, at least for some of the candidates—the prominent candidates. What kind of representation is that? Especially in a district that is actually quite a bit more moderate. They're not trying to represent the whole district. Of course, it's a primary, and I recognize that, but it seems to me that it's really playing into the hands of a polarization."
“The point of a contest is to have debate and competition,” Atkeson says, and that’s missing when all the candidates are vying for supremacy in the same sliver of the political spectrum.
Haaland will be the favorite over Jones and Princeton in the majority-Democratic, Albuquerque-based First Congressional District.
