Gabe Vasquez

Tuesday’s primary elections evoked no suspense when it came to shaping New Mexico’s four federal contests on Nov. 3.

New Mexico’s three Congress members and junior senator, all Democrats, are seeking re-election. Besides Sen. Ben Ray Luján, none faced primary challengers.

Luján was quickly projected to have won the nomination over his relatively unknown Democratic challenger, Matt Dodson of Farmington, who earned just 14% of the early results to the senator’s 86%. Dodson is a community organizer and U.S. Air Force veteran who ran as a democratic socialist.

The Republican Party did not nominate a candidate to challenge Luján. Write-in candidate Larry Marker of Roswell was aiming for a threshold of more than 2,500 votes to secure the Republican slot on the November ballot.

For New Mexico’s three seats in the House of Representatives, Democrats and Republicans all narrowed to a single candidate apiece, sparing them expensive primary battles and allowing them to focus on the general election ahead.

In New Mexico’s 1st Congressional District, incumbent Melanie Stansbury will seek her fourth term in a contest against Rio Rancho pharmacist and business owner Ndidiamaka “Didi” Okpareke.

Similarly, in the 3rd Congressional District, Teresa Leger Fernández is unopposed in her bid for a fourth term. The Democrat was first elected in 2020 and succeeded Luján after his move from the House to the Senate.

She will face Republican Martin Zamora of Clovis in November. Zamora, who farms in Clovis, has been a state Representative since 2019 in an eastern district extending from San Miguel County across Guadalupe, De Baca, Roosevelt and Curry counties.

While those two districts are reliably Democratic, southern New Mexico’s 2nd Congressional District could be more competitive. In recent years, the district shifted from a consistently Republican seat to a cycle where Democrats and Republicans alternated.

When incumbent Gabe Vasquez was reelected in 2024, he became the first Democrat to win a second term in the district since 1978; yet a majority of the district’s voters supported Donald Trump’s presidential bid. Now Vasquez is aiming to be the first Democrat elected to a third term here since Harold Runnels 50 years ago.

But Republicans are eager to take the seat back in November. Republican Greg Cunningham cinched the nomination in April after another candidate, Jose Orozco, dropped out of the contest and backed him. Orozco still appeared on Tuesday’s ballot.

Cunningham, a veteran and former police officer from Albuquerque, comes with campaign experience, having run for the state Legislature previously. He has also drawn Trump’s endorsement — the only New Mexico primary candidate to do so.