OPINION: Rodriguez campaign could break the GOP's funk

New Mexico Republicans are in a deep funk, but not the type you want to get down to.

A Republican hasn’t won a statewide race in New Mexico in nearly a decade, since Judith Nakamura won a seat on the state Supreme Court in 2016.

Two years earlier, Republicans won a majority in the New Mexico House of Representatives for the first time since 1954. They accomplished little, but we did have some political balance in Santa Fe for two years with a GOP-controlled House, Democrat-controlled Senate, and a Republican in the Governor’s Office. However, the days of riding the coattails of former Republican Gov. Susana Martinez to election victories have long passed.

The knock on Republican candidates for statewide and federal offices over the past decade has been that they have been political retreads. Republicans were able to buck that criticism with energized and competitively funded campaigns for governor and U.S. Senate in 2020 and 2022 from Mark Ronchetti and from Nella Domenici in 2024 — two candidates who had never before run for public office and who had the courage to put it all on the line.

But our one-party system chewed them up and spit them out, much to my disappointment as someone who likes a vigorous two-party system. The best check on a political party is a rival party that has the time and human resources to pore through thousands of pages of campaign finance reports, conduct opposition research and generally hold the other party to account.

We sadly lack a vigorous two-party system in New Mexico, and look at the results — low workforce participation rates, high poverty and welfare rates, violent and property crime rates so high U.S. News & World Report ranked us the most dangerous state in the union last year, an overstressed health care system that is about to snap, and low population growth — while states around us prosper with new residents, new investments and high-value amenities like NBA stadiums. (I’m not letting go of that idea. I just need someone to second my motion).

Like many other New Mexicans, I’m looking for candidates with vision, substance, new ideas and a proven track record of success.

That’s why I find the potential gubernatorial campaign of cannabis entrepreneur and former health care executive Duke Rodriguez interesting, if not compelling.

The president and CEO of Ultra Health, which he founded in 2010, is looking at historical trends, voter registration numbers and weighing the electoral impact of registered independents who will be able to vote in primaries next year without registering with a particular party.

“I believe we have crunched the numbers more than any campaign has before,” Rodriguez told me. “We can see the flaws in past efforts and we don’t intend to repeat them. We fully expect to put forth a campaign effort that both Republicans and Democrats will admire. It will not look outdated. It certainly will have a broader appeal than the candidates who have announced to date.”

So far, only Rio Rancho Mayor Gregg Hull has confirmed plans to run in the GOP gubernatorial primary, although other Republicans like Rodriguez are considering bids.

I pressed Rodriguez on when we could expect an announcement, one way or the other. He didn’t give me a clear answer, but he sure sounds like a man who intends to run.

“We have a team of key individuals who are building campaign infrastructure of campaign offices, collaterals, websites, marketing materials, compliance reporting, etc.,” he told me last week. “We have spoken to donors and have declined checks until a final formal announcement. The campaign will initially be self-funded to demonstrate that we have real skin in the game. Former Gov. Gary Johnson recommended that we prove our commitment rather than ask others to bear our costs. Each day we are moving more confidently to making that formal announcement.”

Before launching what would become New Mexico’s largest medical cannabis operation with 25 licensed dispensaries and 500 employees around the state, Rodriguez was secretary of New Mexico’s Human Services Department under Johnson. He’s also a former senior executive for Lovelace Health System, and his appetite to talk about health care in New Mexico is strong.

Rodriguez wants to talk about stronger Medicaid verification and eligibility requirements, out-of-state corporations who have landed lucrative contracts to run Medicaid programs, the effectiveness or lack thereof of an overhaul of New Mexico’s behavioral health system, the explosive growth of state spending from $7 billion in the 2020 budget year to $10.8 billion in the current fiscal year, and how unprecedented revenue windfalls should have been used to shore up the state’s public retirement systems and pursue large-scale desalination plants to produce more usable water.

“In the 60 years I’ve lived in New Mexico, we haven’t had a health care-minded leader in the governor’s office, and that’s a big part of how we ended up in this mess,” he said. “We failed to anticipate the future, and more importantly, we failed to act.”

But will the media want to talk to him more about President Donald Trump? I’m afraid so. Let’s face it, we are living in the Trump political era and candidates on both sides of the aisle need to have clear positions on Trump administration policies. Then, they can articulate their own.

I pressed Duke about his positions on Trump policies. Nella Domenici was hounded by the media and the state Democratic Party about who she would vote for in last year’s presidential election to the point that it became a major distraction for her campaign. It wasn’t until late in the campaign that Nella announced her intention to vote for Trump. It was too late. Trump out-performed Domenici by nearly a full percentage point in New Mexico, garnering more than 17,000 votes than she did.

Post-election analysis from CNN indicated the Rio Grande Valley is the fastest growing Republican area in the nation. Not linking arms with MAGA earlier in the campaign turned out to be a political miscalculation for the Domenici campaign.

I asked Rodriguez how he would handle the inevitable immigration-related questions.

“Let me be clear,” he said. “Protecting our border is essential. Removing violent criminals is non-negotiable. Mass deportation proposals blur critical lines: between law enforcement and labor needs; between compassion and chaos; and between real policy and red-meat politics. No policy gets a blanket yes. I don’t believe in purity tests.”

Rodriguez has proven he can build a cannabis industry from the ground up. I have much respect for him for that. But can a cannabis entrepreneur win the Republican nomination for governor? I don’t know, but I hope we all will find out. He would add substance and common sense in his bid to become our first Hispanic male Republican governor since Gov. Octaviano Ambrosio Larrazolo in 1920.

“I realize I don’t look like the traditional Republican, but I definitely have the background and the skill sets to govern a state like New Mexico,” he said. “I’m well aware of the challenge.”

So am I. Now is the time for Rodriguez to get down and maybe break the GOP out of its deep funk.