The race to fill the vacant seat left by Interior Secretary Deb Haaland for NM congressional district 1 is heating up. Over the weekend The Republican Party of New Mexico’s state central membership selected Senator Mark Moores as the Republican nominee for the Albuquerque-based seat in the House of Representatives. Moores’ nominations was decided during a virtual meeting of state Republican leadership. Despite being the GOP nominee in a district where registered Democrats outnumber Republicans by about 85,000, Moores said he thinks he can sway voters to turn the seat red.
Competing against Moores in the Libertarian Category will be Chris Manning. Manning is a staff auditor for a Farmington accounting business and Afghanistan war veteran. Manning lives in Farmington, which is not in the 1st Congressional District. However, the U.S. Constitution requires that members of the House of Representatives live in the state they represent but not necessarily the same district.
And to round things out, the Democratic party has whittled their candidates down to Senator Antoinette Sedillo Lopez and Representative Melanie Stansbury. Both Stansbury and Sedillo Lopez represent districts in Albuquerque. Sedillo Lopez is favored to win the nomination after receiving 74 of 199 votes in Tuesday’s meeting of the Democratic Party central committee members from the 1st Congressional District. Stansbury finished second with 43 votes. The final election for CD 1 will take place on June 1st. Click HERE to read more.