BREAKING: Democrat Melanie Stansbury wins election to U.S. House in New Mexico's 1st Congressional District. #APracecall at 8:04 p.m. MDT. #Election2021 #NMelection
— AP Politics (@AP_Politics) June 2, 2021
I can’t believe this hasn’t been front-paged yet. Maybe we’ll see another post about this later today.
From Axios:
Democrat Melanie Stansbury defeated her Republican opponent Mark Moores in the special election to represent New Mexico’s 1st congressional district, a House seat vacated when Deb Haaland was confirmed as President Biden’s Interior secretary, per AP.
Why it matters: Stansbury’s victory Tuesday night will grow Democrats’ thin majority in the House to nine seats.
The big picture: Though Biden won the Democratic-leaning by 23 points in November, the race was seen as a potential litmus test for the strength of the party.
Stansbury was selected to run by New Mexico Democratic officials in April over Latina and Native American candidates. State law allows for state parties to pick their nominees instead of conducting primary elections.
Moores, who serves in New Mexico’s state legislature with Stansbury, campaigned heavily on crime and law-and-order rhetoric, per the New York Times.
It looks like Axios is pushing the fact that Stansbury was selected to run by democratic officials, and she was chosen over some Latina and Native American candidates. Is this an issue in New Mexico, or is he just trying to make it an issue?
It looks to me like they chose someone who could win, and she did! And now we have a slightly more comfortable margin in the House.
Update: On a slightly related note – during our two week effort, Balloon Juice raised 22,650 for Four Directions. With the 50k match, that makes it just over 45,000. Heartfelt thanks to every single person who donated, including our anonymous angel donor who made the donation that left all of us over the moon.
Thank you, thank you, thank you, all!
Melanie Stansbury Replaces Deb Haaland in New Mexico!Post + Comments (69)