A political action committee funded almost entirely by companies tied to one family that makes its living in the oil and gas industry is contributing big money to six Republican candidates for state House seats.
Much of the focus appears to be in Doña Ana County, where New Mexico Turn Around has contributed $16,000 to the county GOP on top of the $27,840 it has given directly to Kent Evans and the $13,200 it has given to Mike Tellez. Evans is challenging Jeff Steinborn, D-Las Cruces, while Tellez is challenging Andy Nuñez, D-Hatch.
Since the PAC gave the money to the
Almost all of the PAC’s funding comes from companies tied to the Yates family of southeastern
The PAC has also given $27,840 to Paula Papponi, who is running against Democrat Jack Thomas for an open seat in the Rio Rancho area; $24,630 to Cathrynn Brown, who is running against John Heaton, D-Carlsbad; and $15,000 apiece to Tim Lardner and Matt Rush. Lardner is running against Andrew Barreras, D-Tome, and Rush is running against Jose Campos, D-Santa Rosa.
In addition, Brown received another $5,000 from Yates Petroleum and another $4,000 from John Yates, president of Yates Petroleum.
The PAC’s contributions represent a significant percentage of the total fundraising for each of the six GOP candidates. Evans had raised a total of $59,225.58 as of the campaign finance report submitted to the Secretary of State’s Office on Oct. 13. All numbers in this posting come from reports due on that day.
Tellez had raised $22,630. Papponi had raised $45,932.94. Brown had raised $49,577. Lardner had raised $34,315. Rush had raised $38,640.