Southern N.M. moderate joins gov. race
Cervantes, a Democrat from Las Cruces, becomes part of increasingly crowded field
State Sen. Joseph Cervantes of Las Cruces, who has a history of bucking his own party, announced Wednesday he is running for governor, becoming the fourth Democrat to enter the race to succeed Republican Gov. Susana Martinez when she leaves office at the end of 2018.
Cervantes is jumping into the contest as U.S. Rep. Michelle Lujan Grisham of Albuquerque seeks to establish herself as the front-runner for the Democratic nomination to become the state’s next chief executive. The primary election, however, is still about 11 months away.
Cervantes, a 56-year-old lawyer, has developed a reputation as a moderate Democrat since he was appointed to the Legislature in 2001. And though he has broken with his party on some controversial issues, he has turned into a staunch critic of Martinez.
Delivering the Democratic response to the governor’s State of the State address earlier this year, Cervantes declared: “The state of our state is unacceptable.”
Pointing to New Mexico’s high unemployment rate and budget crisis, he railed against corporate tax cuts pushed by the governor — which he voted against — and her efforts to reform the public education system, arguing those policies had failed.
Nonetheless, Cervantes broke with many in his party on particularly controversial issues, voting to scrap the state’s law on providing driver’s licenses
for undocumented immigrants and opposing legislation that abolished the death penalty.
Cervantes ran for speaker of the state House in 2011, cobbling together a coalition of Republicans and Southern New Mexico Democrats in an attempt to pry the gavel from then-Speaker Ben Luján. Republicans viewed him as a Democrat who could work with what was at the time a new GOP administration. Cervantes abandoned his bid on the day of the vote, however, as the tea party reined in Republican lawmakers. He ended up casting his support with the veteran speaker from Nambé.
In 2012, he won a state Senate seat representing a district that stretches from Las Cruces to Sunland Park and Santa Teresa and openly mulled making a bid to unseat Martinez in 2014.
Cervantes enters the race for governor as Lujan Grisham positions herself as the Democratic establishment’s favorite to succeed Martinez.
She launched her campaign in December after U.S. Sen. Tom Udall said he would not run for the post, and she has notched endorsements from prominent Democrats such as former U.S. Sen. Jeff Bingaman, several labor unions and state Attorney General Hector Balderas — once considered a possible rival for the governorship. During the first months of her campaign, Lujan Grisham reported raising about $900,000.
In May, Jeff Apodaca of Albuquerque, a former media industry executive and son of former Gov. Jerry Apodaca, launched his campaign for the party’s nomination, positioning himself as a political outsider.
“For too long, we have had a governor content to make decisions for the next political cycle, and not the next generation,” Apodaca said in a statement Wednesday. “To turn New Mexico around we need fresh, new leadership with the imagination, creativity, and the will to make serious, game-changing investments into our state.”
Santa Fe resident Peter DeBenedittis, an advocate for policies to curb alcohol abuse, also is vying for the nomination.
No Republican has officially joined the race for governor. U.S. Rep. Steve Pearce is openly considering a run for the post, but a spokeswoman said this week he has not decided whether to run for re-election to Congress.
Some observers believe Lujan Grisham could benefit from a crowded field dividing up votes while she enjoys a relatively prominent public profile as a sitting congresswoman and the former state Cabinet secretary for the Aging and Long-Term Services Department.
Democratic political consultant Brian Morris expects the race to be expensive, and candidates may feel growing pressure to campaign more aggressively and advertise sooner.
“It’s going to be pricey, especially when candidates have an ability to raise money,” Morris added, pointing to reports that Apodaca has been fundraising heavily and to Lujan Grisham’s strong showing in the first round of campaign finance reports in April.
Cervantes is believed to have an advantage with his personal wealth.
The son of a prominent farming family in Southern New Mexico with a business growing pecans, chile and other crops along the Rio Grande, Cervantes also has a law practice that was part of a 2015 lawsuit that led to what has been called the biggest civil award in the history of the state’s courts. He helped sue FedEx after one of the company’s semitra ctortrailers slammed into a truck, killing a 22-year-old woman and her 4-year-old daughter.
Born in Southern New Mexico, Cervantes began his career as an architect. He attended The University of New Mexico and later California Polytechnic State University, working for a time at the firm of modernist architect Dale Naegle.
Cervantes returned to New Mexico in the late 1980s, attended law school, and had three children, all of whom attended public schools. He has long been active in Democratic politics, serving as a delegate at the party’s national conventions and winning election to the Doña Ana County Board of Commissioners.