RNC closed Hispanic community centers in District 2, but hasn't given up on flipping the congressional seat

In August 2022, the Republican National Committee opened with fanfare a “Hispanic community center” in the South Valley.

The area had recently been added to New Mexico’s 2nd Congressional District after a heated redistricting battle, which some Republicans said gave the Democratic Party an unfair advantage.

Of all of New Mexico’s congressional districts, the 2nd District has the greatest number of Latino voters; 2022 U.S. Census data showed that 62% of the district’s population identified as Hispanic or Latino, compared with about 44% in both the 1st and 3rd districts. About 82% of people living in the South Valley are Hispanic.

But the center quietly closed after Election Day 2022, when Yvette Herrell narrowly lost her reelection bid to current Congressman Gabe Vasquez.

Federal Elections Commission records show that the RNC paid rent to an Albuquerque property from August 2022 to December 2022. Another center was opened in Las Cruces, according to the Las Cruces Sun-News, in September 2022; the last rent payment to a Las Cruces property was in November 2022.

The RNC would not confirm the date when the New Mexico community centers closed or disclose why they closed.

“Our communities care about results, not political stunts,” Vasquez said in a statement. “It’s no surprise that Republicans closed their Hispanic ‘community centers’ in my district after the last election. They’ve never truly been invested in our communities.”

But the closures don’t mean that the Republican Party has given up on flipping the district.

The National Republican Congressional Committee identified “NM-D2” as one of 37 “vulnerable” U.S. House seats in the country.

In a statement, NRCC spokesperson Delanie Bomar said, “Republicans are all hands on deck to flip this seat red in November and elect Yvette Herrell.”

The South Valley center was the 35th “minority center” the RNC had opened in the country. Now, there are just seven in operation, with new locations in Cortlandt, New York, and Merced, California.

“We are currently evaluating every aspect of political and community engagement in order to align our operations with President Trump’s campaign,” RNC Chairman Michael Whatley said in a statement in response to Journal questions. “We have seen very positive impacts from our community engagement centers and intend to continue to utilize them to build support for President Trump and Republican Candidates across the country.”

Herrell campaign spokesperson Paul Smith said after announcing her latest campaign, Herrell has spent significant time visiting with Hispanic voters in the South Valley and around the district as she hopes to take back her seat. Herrell lost by about 1,300 votes in 2022.

“While the Democrat’s drastic gerrymandering was enough for them to prevail by 0.7% in a midterm with low turnout, we are confident in Yvette’s ability to win back the district in a presidential year,” Smith said.

The redistricting prompted a lawsuit, with the Republican Party of New Mexico alleging the new district map diluted Republican votes — as evidenced by the 2022 congressional election. The New Mexico Supreme Court said the redistricting fell short of “egregious” gerrymandering.

But even before the redistricting — and unlike the 1st and 3rd districts, which have reliably voted for Democrat representatives — the district flip-flopped between red and blue.

In 2003, Republican Steve Pearce was elected. In 2009, the seat turned blue when one-term Democrat Harry Teague was elected. Pearce reclaimed the seat in 2011, defeating Teague in his reelection bid. Democrat Xochitl Torres Small took Pearce’s place in 2018.

It hasn’t always been that way

Gabriel Sanchez, professor of political science at the University of New Mexico and a senior fellow at Brookings, said the competitiveness of the district, once a reliable Republican vote, is relatively new. Sanchez said the Democratic Party has started investing more resources into the district and finding the “right candidates” to turn out youth and Latino voters.

“I think, right now, it’s listed as one of the most competitive in the country,” Sanchez said. “But it is a relatively short history of having that competitive environment.”

Sanchez said the Republican Party still remains strong in the Permian Basin and other, more rural parts of the district, but the party might try to shrink vote margins in urban areas like Las Cruces and the South Valley as well.

“The South Valley of Albuquerque is kind of an interesting area,” Sanchez said. “It is heavily rural, so it’s an interesting debate. Are the South Valley voters more like the rural southern area of the state? Are they more like the urban, slightly to the north voters in Albuquerque?”

Some of the same issues — such as reducing inflation and the cost of living, increasing wages and lowering health care costs — play well in both the South Valley and other parts of the district, Sanchez said.

But only time will tell what the impact of redistricting will be on the upcoming election, when candidates in lower races can benefit from a presidential-election turnout boost.

“It’s a new, essentially clean slate voting base — for both sides,” Sanchez said.