{"id":589993,"date":"2018-06-06T06:37:15","date_gmt":"2018-06-06T12:37:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=589993"},"modified":"2018-06-06T06:37:15","modified_gmt":"2018-06-06T12:37:15","slug":"dems-pick-garcia-richard-morales-and-colon-in-statewide-races","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2018\/06\/dems-pick-garcia-richard-morales-and-colon-in-statewide-races\/","title":{"rendered":"Dems pick Garcia Richard, Morales and Col\u00f3n in statewide races"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_589997\"  class=\"wp-caption module image alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 771px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-589997\" src=\"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/Morales-Howie-771x504.jpg\" alt=\"Howie Morales\" width=\"771\" height=\"504\" srcset=\"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/Morales-Howie-771x504.jpg 771w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/Morales-Howie-336x220.jpg 336w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/Morales-Howie-768x502.jpg 768w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/Morales-Howie.jpg 1083w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 771px) 100vw, 771px\" \/><p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Laura Paskus \/ New Mexico Political Report<\/p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Democrat Howie Morales celebrated his win Tuesday night with family and supporters.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s going to be a nail-biter,\u201d Garrett VeneKlasen said early in the night as he and fellow Democrat Stephanie Garcia Richard were neck-and-neck in the race for New Mexico state land commissioner.<\/p>\n<p>And indeed it was, as the two traded the lead throughout the night, with Garcia Richard, a state representative, pulling ahead as the final results from Bernalillo County came in late Tuesday night, giving her a two percentage point lead over VeneKlasen. Despite a last-minute ad campaign, state Sen. George Mu\u00f1oz finished almost 15 percentage points behind the two frontrunners.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI feel very gratified the voters responded to my cause,\u201d Garcia Richard said. \u201cI was outspent, I didn\u2019t have the institutional support my opponents had and I didn\u2019t have the endorsements they had.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In November\u2019s general election, she will face Republican Pat Lyons, who previously held the office for two terms, from 2003 until 2010. A rancher, Lyons currently represents District 2 on the Public Regulation Commission.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"module align-left half type-aside\">\n<h3>About this article<\/h3>\n<p>This article comes from\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/nmpoliticalreport.com\/844605\/dems-choose-garcia-richard-in-close-land-commissioner-race-colon-morales-clinch-state-auditor-and-lt-gov-spots\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">New Mexico Political Report<\/a>,\u00a0a nonprofit news organization\u00a0focused on promoting a greater public understanding of politics and policy in the state of New Mexico.<\/p>\n<\/aside>\n<p>If she wins the race, Garcia Richard said she plans to \u201ctransform the office\u201d and lead a \u201cjust transition from oil and gas to renewable energy.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Conceding the race shortly before 11 p.m., VeneKlasen offered his support to Garcia Richard.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe need a new land commissioner who will bring that agency into the 21st Century, and I think Stephanie can do that,\u201d he said. \u201cOur issues, our platforms are very similar, and if she wants me to help her, I will be happy to help her. I will stand behind her.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Though clearly disappointed, VeneKlasen said he was proud of what his campaign accomplished. \u201cWe\u2019ve elevated this obscure but super important agency and brought it into the public\u2019s eye,\u201d said VeneKlasen, who is executive director of the New Mexico Wildlife Federation. \u201cThis is as important as the governor\u2019s race.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, the Democratic race for lieutenant governor was called for state Sen. Howie Morales early in the evening. He won handily over former House Majority Leader Rick Miera and Do\u00f1a Ana County Commissioner Billy Garrett.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe whole purpose that I got into this race\u2026 was I wanted to make sure we had the strongest ticket possible because the most important goal is to win in November,\u201d Morales said. \u201cWe\u2019ve had a Democratic majority Senate and a Democratic majority House, but we\u2019ve seen the destruction that\u2019s taken place when we haven\u2019t had the executive [office] under the Democrats.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Morales, who lives in southwestern New Mexico, said he looks forward to working together with gubernatorial candidate Michelle Lujan Grisham to \u201chave the change in New Mexico we so desperately need.\u201d<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>In the Democratic race for state auditor, former Democratic Party of New Mexico Chairman Brian Col\u00f3n beat out Southern New Mexico\u2019s Rep. Bill McCamley by about 25 percentage points as of press time.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re ecstatic about the win, mostly because, from Deming to Rio Arriba County, people embraced our message,\u201d Col\u00f3n said. \u201cWe\u2019re going to fight waste, fraud and abuse.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In November, Col\u00f3n will be facing a past rival. In 2017, Republican Wayne Johnson and Col\u00f3n were among the candidates running for Albuquerque mayor. After Tim Keller won and vacated his position as state auditor, Gov. Susana Martinez appointed Johnson.<\/p>\n<p>Col\u00f3n said he was looking forward to the race against Johnson. \u201cI think a Democratic wave is coming,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Col\u00f3n also said that as state auditor, his initial priority would be to evaluate the current structures and resources of the office. \u201cGovernor Martinez decimated the auditor\u2019s office \u2014 it\u2019s seen a 10 percent reduction [in funding] in four years,\u201d he said. \u201cThe reason for that, is she didn\u2019t want the auditor looking over her shoulder. Those days are over.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>U.S. Senator Martin Heinrich was among those at VeneKlasen\u2019s election night event in Albuquerque.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think it\u2019s pretty exciting to see the level of enthusiasm when you compare the number of voters who showed up on the Democratic side of the ledger versus the Republican side of the ledger \u2014 and the team that\u2019s is shaping up as the primary races are called,\u201d Heinrich said. \u201cI think it\u2019s going to be a very, very tough for the Republicans this year in New Mexico.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Heinrich added that there is fatigue with the current governor and the current president. But he said there is hope on the horizon.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019ve had a lost eight years \u2014 eight years of not seizing opportunity because we didn\u2019t have that leadership in the governor\u2019s office,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re going to have an incredible majority in the statehouse now, and I believe we\u2019re absolutely going to win the governor\u2019s race, and we\u2019re going to be able to make up that lost time on education, on early childhood education, on renewables and on a whole series of fronts.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Stephanie Garcia Richard narrowly defeated Garrett VeneKlasen to win the Democratic nomination for state land commissioner.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":589997,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[2238,3660,3635,107,3659],"class_list":["post-589993","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-2018-election","tag-brian-colon","tag-howie-morales","tag-roundhouse","tag-stephanie-garcia-richard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/589993","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=589993"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/589993\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/589997"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=589993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=589993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=589993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}