Gabe Vasquez

A southern New Mexico congressional seat is the prize in one of the nation’s most closely watched elections as Democrats nationwide seek to flip the House and Senate on Nov. 3.

The Democratic incumbent, U.S. Rep. Gabe Vasquez, is seeking a third term representing a district encompassing New Mexico’s 180-mile border with Mexico, the Las Cruces Metropolitan Area, the southwestern Bootheel and a chunk of the state’s southeast oil patch including Carlsbad and part of Hobbs. The district fills the southwestern corner of the state and sweeps northward into Albuquerque’s South Valley.

Redistricting in 2021 made New Mexico’s 2nd Congressional district more favorable for Democrats. Cook’s Political Report, a widely respected barometer of elections nationwide, has described the contest as leaning toward Democrats.

Yet it is not a district Democrats can take for granted. In 2022 Vasquez eked out a 0.7% margin of victory over Republican incumbent Yvette Herrell. President Donald Trump carried the district in 2024 by a 1.8% margin.

Republicans have given the New Mexico seat a spotlight this year, backing Greg Cunningham in a bid to unseat Vasquez. Cunningham is a Marine combat veteran and former Albuquerque police detective who has twice run for a seat in the New Mexico Legislature. Cunningham holds Trump’s endorsement and gave a speech at the national GOP’s first-ever “midterm convention” in Dallas in September.

In a new interview with the Journal, Cunningham put border security and law enforcement at the center of his message. Pointing to his 22-year law enforcement career, Cunningham said, “That’s my wheelhouse.”

Yet Trump’s approval rating across the state has fallen, and a Journal poll in September revealed worries about the economy among New Mexicans across demographic groups, with 43% rating conditions as “fair” and 38% as “poor.”

Steering clear of implicating Trump’s policies, Cunningham argued that crime and public safety were at the root of New Mexicans’ economic woes. “We're a border state and we are one of the highest states in violent crime,” Cunningham said. “We're having trouble bringing people here, we're having trouble bringing people to work, we're having trouble bringing industry and jobs and opportunity … for me, that is the genesis of a lot of our problems.”

Vasquez countered that Trump had broken promises to voters who supported him in rural and urban areas alike, who now face soaring prices for gas, groceries, fertilizer, diesel and more. Vasquez claimed voters “want a return to stability, and they want to actually see a plan for how we're going to lower prices in the future.”

The former Las Cruces city councilman has been in the minority through his congressional career, advocating for comprehensive immigration reform, linking border security to economic development and trade and bringing some bipartisan initiatives to fruition, such as public land protections.

If he returns to Washington as part of a Democratic majority, Vasquez foresaw opportunities to work with Republicans on capping the price of insulin and other prescriptions, healthcare reform and forging an offramp from tariffs, trade wars and the Iranian conflict. Vasquez speculated that Republicans could also work with Democrats on anti-corruption legislation, such as banning stock trading by presidents and members of Congress.

Cunningham pushed back against claims by Vasquez and fellow Democrats that, due to his closeness to Trump, Cunningham would be a rubber stamp for the president’s agenda. He said, “My allegiance is to New Mexicans, to the people of (the district). I did not raise my hand and swear allegiance to a particular party or a particular person.”

One issue where he veered from Trump is on data centers, which have emerged as a hot campaign issue over the past year.

In or near the district, a hyperscale data center for artificial intelligence training is under construction in Santa Teresa, with other data center proposals in Grant and Sierra counties. Google recently announced it is exploring a location west of Hobbs. Meta is building a new data center in west Texas just over the state line from Chaparral.

Trump has emphatically backed AI development and data centers, claiming that communities opposing the developments are taken in by a “sick conspiracy” and opting for “poverty, crime and squalor.”

Cunningham, for his part, validated community concerns about the environmental costs, especially water. “We will not allow data centers to use irrigation water for data centers,” he said, while supporting requirements that data centers provide their own power and protections for New Mexican ratepayers.

Ultimately, Cunningham said, “each community in New Mexico should be able to decide for itself what they want and what they don't want in their backyard, and I will adhere to that.”

Vasquez has backed local moratoriums that would pause data center developments, supported legislation shielding ratepayers from footing the costs of infrastructure upgrades supporting data centers and introduced a bill rolling back tax breaks for data center developers. Vasquez said that in addressing AI development and data center construction, “as a Congress we have to get serious in a bipartisan way and put politics aside.”

A recent KOB-TV poll showed Vasquez leading Cunningham, 46% to 43%, but the result was within a 4.6% margin of error.

The candidates have both agreed to one debate, taking place over a week after early voting begins on Oct. 6.

The Vasquez campaign also challenged Cunningham to a Spanish-language debate on Univision, but Cunningham demurred, telling the Journal, “I’m what we jokingly call a ‘no sabo’ kid. I’m part of a generation of New Mexicans that our families didn’t speak Spanish to us. They wanted us to assimilate. … I'm a proud Hispanic New Mexican, and the way my parents raised me was the way they raised me.”

Vasquez said Cunningham could participate with translation provided by Univision. “There's plenty of Spanish-speaking voters out there that deserve to know where Greg stands on these important issues, and he doesn't have to speak Spanish to participate,” Vasquez said.

As it stands, the candidates are set to face each other at 5 p.m. on Oct. 16 on KRQE-TV.