It was brisk, polite, well-prepared and free of gaffes. The candidates traded jabs but spoke within their time without interruptions or cross-talk. Then they shook hands and it was done.
The candidates in the closely watched contest for southern New Mexico’s seat in Congress met for a single half-hour debate, 6:30 pm on a Friday evening, taking turns answering questions and rebutting each other on KOB-TV.
And while there were no knockout blows, Republican incumbent Yvette Herrell kept Democratic challenger Gabriel “Gabe” Vasquez on the defensive over deleted social media posts and law enforcement. He, in turn, criticized her first term in Congress and presented himself as an advocate for working class families across southern New Mexico.
Democrats hope to reclaim the traditionally Republican district in the Nov. 8 election in a year the GOP is expected to win back a majority in the House of Representatives. The district encompasses all of New Mexico’s southern border, the rural southwestern corner of the state as well as the Las Cruces metropolitan area and some of the southeastern oil and gas region, extending northward into Albuquerque, including the city’s South Valley and West Side.
Herrell is a realtor and former state lawmaker from Alamogordo who was elected to Congress in 2020. Vasquez is a former Las Cruces City Council member making his first run for federal office.
In her opening statement, Herrell said, “We want a nation that has a strong economy, a nation that’s safe, and we want to make sure we live in a country that celebrates the Constitution.” She presented herself as an experienced representative attentive to the needs of urban and rural areas and argued that unified Democratic control was holding back progress, saying, “One-party rule isn’t working.”
She also claimed credit for working “to bring money back to the people touched by the fires” over the past summer, although she voted against a stopgap spending bill that included $2.5 billion in recovery funds for those affected by the Hermits Peak-Calf Canyon Fire . She did so, she has argued, to oppose high spending under Democratic leadership.
Vasquez incorporated Spanish into his opening and closing statements, telling the story of his grandfather’s immigration to the United States and bringing up his own working class, and argued for a version of “the American dream” that included affordable healthcare, working for fair wages and ” the freedom to make your own decisions about your own body,” a reference to debates over abortion.
The candidates responded to questions about the US-Mexico border, the oil and gas industry on whose revenues New Mexico depends, election security and bodily autonomy with respect to vaccines as well as abortion.
Vasquez called for comprehensive immigration reform while Herrell emphasized human and narcotics trafficking at the border and demanded stricter controls on crossings, specifically endorsing policies requiring asylum applicants to wait outside the United States while their cases are in process.
Herrell repeatedly questioned Vasquez’s views on law enforcement throughout the debate, leaning on misleading claims over recent weeks that Vasquez has supported defunding or eliminating police. She also hammered him for deleting social media posts dating back to 2020 that expressed blunt opinions about police reform, white supremacy and the fossil fuel industry.
Ironically, in a post deleted from Twitter, Vasquez had written: “It’s OK to oppose fracking, OK to support the Green New Deal, OK to support Medicare for all, OK to talk about progressive immigration reform, OK to stand for what you believe . #Stay strong.”
In the closing weeks of the campaign, the deletion of such posts have been used to suggest Vasquez is hiding his real positions and diminishing voters’ trust in him. In a comment for the New Mexico Politics blog, political strategist Steve Cabiedes faulted “DC consultants” for the move, saying, “One should never hide who they are.”
When Vasquez pointed out, correctly, that he had consistently voted as a city councilor to approve city budgets that included increases for police budgets, Herrell pivoted to his opposition for a federal Operation Stonegarden grant sought by city and county law enforcement in 2019. As reported at the time, Vasquez sought the funding through the city rather than through the controversial federal program.
In an attempt to return fire, Vasquez suggested it was Herrell, who had voted to “defund police,” without diving into specifics. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has argued that some of Herrell’s votes against spending bills that included funding for law enforcement agencies constitute hypocrisy.
Herrell stated that she supported a right to abortion in cases of rape, incest or to save a mother’s life, while Vasquez pointed out she had supported abortion bans without those exceptions. He said he would support codifying abortion rights in federal statute: “I value freedom in this country, and that means that women in this country have to have the ability to make their own health care decisions. It shouldn’t be left up to the states.”
Herrell, meanwhile, extended the bodily autonomy issue to vaccine mandates, an issue Vasquez did not address.
Vasquez strongly criticized Herrell for objecting to certification of electoral votes for Joe Biden in the 2020 election hours after the Jan. 6 attack on the US Capitol by supporters of Donald Trump, who had lost his run for reelection. Herrell condemned the attacks but insisted there were legitimate questions about the election process in Arizona and Pennsylvania.
The candidates’ positions nearly came together with respect to energy production. Herrell advocated an “all of the above” approach including both petroleum and renewable energy production, while Vasquez called for a “two track approach” that strongly boosted battery and transmission technology and infrastructure but also held oil and gas companies accountable for environmental protections and for paying taxes on their profits.
Early voting for the Nov 8 election is underway, and the last day to apply for an absentee ballot is Nov 3. All absentee ballots must be received by the county before 7 pm on Nov 8. Same-day voter registration is available for voting early or on Election Day.
To see a sample ballot for your area, go to https://voterportal.servis.sos.state.nm.us/WhereToVote.aspx.
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Algernon D’Ammassa can be reached at 575-541-5451, [email protected] or @AlgernonWrites on Twitter.
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