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September 1 – SANTA FE – For the past several decades, Albuquerque's 15th District House seat has been a key legislative battleground.
The district, which includes a large swath of the North Valley, has been controlled by three Republicans and three Democrats since 2001.
But this year, Rep. Diane Hochman Vigil got a free run for another term.
“It’s definitely less stressful,” said Hochman Vigil, a Democrat and licensed attorney who faced general election battles in 2018, 2020 and 2022 to represent the district.
“All the feedback we've gotten is that people are very happy with my service,” she added.
This is the first time since 1990 that neither of the two traditional major political parties has fielded candidates in the district, which was redrawn during redistricting in 2021 and is now a more Democratic-leaning seat.
However, this is not the only legislative race in New Mexico with just one candidate on the ballot, as both Democrats and Republicans have essentially conceded dozens of races.
During a recent legislative committee hearing, House Speaker Javier Martinez said the hard work and long hours lawmakers put in make the job unattractive to many potential candidates.
“I would say that a lot of us have no opposition,” Martinez said.
Hochman Vigil said she does not disagree with that view.
New Mexico is the only state that does not pay salaries to its legislators, though lawmakers do receive a daily stipend — currently set at $231 a day — to cover food and lodging expenses. They can also qualify for a legislative pension plan.
“This job is too hard for most New Mexicans,” she told the Wall Street Journal. “These positions should be competitive. Democracy is not a spectator sport.”
Free ride for many current lawmakers
The path to reelection will certainly be easy for many lawmakers this year.
With 112 legislative seats up for election, 51 incumbent lawmakers — out of a total of 85 incumbent lawmakers seeking new terms — are unopposed in the November general election.
In the Senate, 19 of the 26 incumbent members seeking re-election have no challengers in the general election.
The percentage of unopposed lawmakers is slightly lower in the House, where 32 of the 59 incumbent House members running to retain their seats are unopposed.
One reason for the lack of competitive races may be New Mexico's increasing political polarization, with Democrats capturing nearly every legislative seat in the state's urban centers of Albuquerque, Las Cruces and Santa Fe over the past decade.
Meanwhile, Republicans won several rural seats long held by Democrats, including Senate seats in Roswell and Bothell in southwestern New Mexico.
Gerrymandering may also be a factor, as lawmakers sometimes protect incumbents during the once-a-decade task of redrawing political boundaries to reflect population changes.
“When you create a safe Democratic seat, you often create a safe Republican seat next to it,” said Brian Sandroff, a longtime New Mexico political observer who advises lawmakers during redistricting.
But Sanderoff also said it has become increasingly difficult to create swing districts in many parts of New Mexico, due to political shifts and redistricting to protect minorities in the federal Voting Rights Act.
“For decades, the easiest place to build swing seats in New Mexico was the Northeast Heights and West Side of Albuquerque,” Sanderoff said.
And with Democrats winning many of the seats that were held by Republicans in the Albuquerque area over the past decade, some of those traditional swing districts have lost their competitiveness, he said.
Some unopposed candidates are still campaigning.
And in southwestern New Mexico, Crystal Brantley of Elephant Butte won a Senate seat in 2020 that had been held by Democrats for decades.
Four years later, Brantley is running unopposed for re-election, but she said she is helping fellow Republicans in the district with their campaigns.
“We are counting on Democrats voting red to win, just as I had to do four years ago,” she told the newspaper.
Brantley said her district, which stretches from the Las Cruces suburbs to the state's border with Arizona, may have become more conservative during redistricting.
But she said Senate District 35 is still not a “hard red” district like some other parts of the state.
Like Hochman Vigil, Brantley said part of the reason she didn't have a Democratic opponent this year may be because of her work as a member of the legislature.
“I'm relieved that I don't have the workload of a campaign this year, but I think that's because of the workload I have as a member of the legislature,” she said.
Brantley, a business owner who grew up in a cattle family, said she also doesn't plan to get too comfortable despite her free ride to reelection.
“I know how hard you worked to win the district, and I'm ready to defend it,” she said.
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