Long-held Republican House seat in Rio Rancho up for grabs

Will voters in this year’s general election flip an open Rio Rancho state House seat or keep it Republican?

The House District 57 seat — the district encompasses Rio Rancho, spanning northwest of Idalia NE and U.S. 550 — has seen consistent Republican wins over the past decade, though some races have been decided by narrow margins.

Rep. Jason Harper, a moderate Republican, has held the seat since 2013 and, as a ranking member of the House Taxation and Revenue Committee, has had a significant hand in crafting tax legislation.

With Harper not seeking reelection, Republican Catherine Cullen is trying to keep the seat in the GOP column while Democrat Michelle Sandoval is once again trying to flip the district. Sandoval lost the 2022 general election to Harper by just 3 percentage points.

Sandoval has pulled ahead in campaign fundraising efforts, reporting nearly $113,000 in total donations compared to about $77,400 for Cullen.

Sandoval, who works at Los Alamos National Laboratory, has received donations from local labor unions like the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and the American Federation of Teachers New Mexico, advocacy organizations and Democratic legislative leaders.

Cullen, a real estate broker, has raised money with contributions from Republican lawmakers — including Harper — and political action committees like Asphalt Pavement and New Mexico Association of Realtors. She has also reported donations from Jalapeño Corporation, an oil and gas business led by former state Republican Party Chair Harvey Yates Jr.

A Rio Rancho model for the state?

Both candidates said Rio Rancho is a role model in many ways for the state of New Mexico.

Sandoval said Rio Rancho’s education system is amazing. She said she wants to continue support for pre-kindergarten programs, advocate for smaller class sizes and work on school-based wraparound services, like mental health support for children.

“We’ve been really like a guideline for, I think, a lot of New Mexico for what it means to invest in our education system,” she said.

Cullen, who served on the Rio Rancho school board for eight years, said she wants to modernize educational facilities, ensure career technical paths are available and make sure infrastructure is in place for excelling programs, like Rio Rancho’s Shining Stars Preschool.

“I’m certainly committed to supporting our exceptional schools and prioritizing the needs and success of our students,” she said.

The state needs to reinstate an elected school board as opposed to an appointed secretary of education position, she said.

“We’re now on our fifth (Public Education Department) secretary under this governor, and with our school districts and students, they need stability to improve our education system and outcomes. So every time you get a new secretary, they want to change things up,” Cullen said.

Crime and health care top concerns

Sandoval acknowledged the crime and public safety issues New Mexico faces, something many Albuquerque candidates have voiced as their top priorities, and said it’s “imperative to me” that those issues don’t creep into Rio Rancho.

She said she wants to focus on getting more funding for courts so judges can hold people accountable and deliver justice.

Similarly, Cullen said she often hears about crime issues in New Mexico and said Rio Rancho has great law enforcement, which she would want to continue supporting.

She said the state needs to hold criminals accountable and shut the revolving door. She referred to this year’s special session on public safety and said it was disappointing. Legislators passed one bill with money for disaster relief and a pilot court program for assisted outpatient treatment and competency diversion.

“In the special session, they didn’t address any crime bills,” Cullen said. “And we need to make sure that we’re doing everything in our power to address the crime, mental health and substance abuse issues in the state.”

Sandoval said crime bills that pass need to be thoroughly vetted and well thought out, a sentiment many Democrats said Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s bills largely lacked in the special session.

“It’s really important that we are really comprehensive with the bill that we decide to push forward and make sure that it’s aggressive and we’re able to hold those accountable that are within it,” Sandoval said.

Sandoval said she wants to see New Mexico gain more robust infrastructure for mental health and drug treatment programs, and she supports diversion and reentry programs.

“I really feel like a lot of people don’t have an option to a better path,” she said.

On health care, Sandoval said she wants to work on recruiting and retaining doctors, lowering the cost of prescription drug prices and safeguarding abortion access and reproductive freedom.

Cullen also said she’d want to prioritize recruiting and retaining doctors, such as by expanding university programs that send medical students to rural areas when they become physicians.

“We all know that trying to get into a doctor’s office is really difficult. It’s a challenge, and especially if you need specialty doctors,” she said.

Cullen said affordability and lowering costs is a priority for this district.

“I am dedicated to reducing the cost of living for hard-working New Mexicans and cutting unnecessary regulations and finding ways to lower taxes,” she said.

She said one way to do that is examining government-funded programs that haven’t performed well for years. She noted that the state’s budget might be booming right now, but it won’t always be that way, and recurring funding can be hard to keep up in deficit years.

“If it’s broken, we need to really go in and fix it. That doesn’t always mean by throwing more money into it, but really analyzing these programs,” she said.