Herrell brings legislative experience, knowledge of state

LAS CRUCES — Republican Yvette Herrell is hoping to keep New Mexico’s 2nd Congressional District red as her party tries to hold back a possible blue wave at the ballot box in November.

“I’m the one coming with experience understanding the state,” Herrell said. The 54-year-old real estate agent from Alamogordo has served four terms as a state representative. She is a businesswoman and graduated from the ITT School of Business.

In a recent interview with the Journal, she said her campaign is about the shared values that are important to New Mexicans: “pro-Second Amendment, pro-life, people wanting to raise children or run their businesses with limited government without the heavy handedness of the government dictating or mandating how they pay or what they do.”

Herrell is a well-known conservative in the race for the 2nd District, which covers the southern part of the state, including along the Mexican border. It has been Republicancontrolled for all but two years since 1981. President Donald Trump won the district by 10 points.

She supports the president’s promise to build a border wall and does not support “amnesty” for undocumented workers.

“No one crossing our borders illegally should be allowed to stay in our country or state,” Herrell wrote in response to the Journal’s candidate questionnaire. She also said the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program needs to be overhauled, because the plan has “now expanded beyond the original intent.”

In New Mexico, more than half of all likely voters say they “disapprove” of the way Trump is handing his job as president, according to a recent Journal Poll.

The divisive political climate may make stripping away party affiliation difficult, but Herrell, an avid Trump supporter, hopes some voters will do that in November.

“I think if you look at the bigger picture and take political party out of it, you see that we’ve made some real strides that have benefited New Mexicans and the American people,” Herrell said.

She touts economic gains, including a low unemployment rate, and the stock market’s “alltime highs.” And she points to tax overhaul, moving the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem and veterans’ access to health care as progress.

She’s hoping to win over voters with that message in the final weeks before the midterm election.

“I’m excited about the opportunities and carrying the voice of the people from New Mexico to Washington,” Herrell said.

Herrell is one of two women running for a congressional seat that has always been held by a man. The seat is open because Republican Steve Pearce decided not to seek re-election to run for governor.

The 2nd District race has garnered national attention and money from Democrats working to flip the seat during midterm elections, when the party of the president tends to lose votes.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is paying for attack ads that echo allegations made during the primary by Republican candidate Monte Newman, who called Herrell “an insider we can’t trust.”

A television commercial funded by the DCCC alleges that “while serving in the state house, Yvette Herrell landed nearly half a million dollars in state contracts for her own company and then failed to disclose it.”

But Herrell Properities is owned by her father, and she and her sister are partners in name only, Herrell said.

“We have no authority on decisions for this company. We do not receive paychecks from this company. It’s in name only, essentially,” she said.

Further, she said she was advised by the New Mexico Secretary of State’s Office that she did not have to report rent her father collected from the state for two properties, because it is not part of her income.

Herrell’s campaign is also getting help with her campaign at the national level as one of the National Republican Congressional Committee’s “young guns” — candidates in competitive congressional races.

The NRCC is paying for attack ads calling the Democratic candidate in the race, Xochitl Torres Small, “a Nancy Pelosi liberal,” a label Torres Small says is not accurate.

A staunch conservative, Herrell is counting on support in the oil-rich, heavily Republican eastern part of the district. But she is also reaching out to independents who could not vote in the primaries and conservative Democrats in rural areas with a promise to work across the aisle on solutions for New Mexico.

While in the Legislature, Herrell co-founded the Article V Caucus which promotes limited government and the Balanced Budget Amendment Task Force. She said she opposed fellow Republicans when a minimum wage increase was included in a “right-towork” bill. “I caught some grief over that, but at the end of the day it was the right thing to do.”