2nd Republican in race to succeed Lujan Grisham
An Albuquerque immigration lawyer wants to be the Republican who flips New Mexico’s 1st Congressional District from blue to red.
Michael Hendricks confirmed Tuesday he is running to succeed Democratic Rep. Michelle Lujan Grisham in Washington, D.C., as she gives up her seat in Congress to make a bid for governor.
Hendricks is the second Republican to join the race after former state Rep. Janice Arnold-Jones. But seven Democrats are already vying for their party’s nomination.
The district, which stretches across Albuquerque and over the Sandia Mountains, has leaned Democratic for the last decade. But a Republican held the seat as recently as 2008 and the GOP aims to win it back, listing the district among several it will target in 2018.
“In my candidacy, I see bringing back morality to the U.S. Congress and working to stem the tide of overspending in Washington,” Hendricks said in a statement Tuesday.
In announcing his campaign, Hendricks pointed to education and public safety as the “foundation of any thriving community.”
A father of four children, Hendricks runs his own law
firm focusing on immigration cases and serves as the consulting attorney for the Mexican consulate. He sits on the board of TNTI Ministries and earned a bachelor’s degree as well as a law degree from The University of New Mexico. Hendricks grew up partly in Mexico, where his parents moved when he was 7 years old to work as missionaries.
The primary election is in June 2018.
Among the Democratic candidates are former U.S. Attorney Damon Martinez, Albuquerque City Council member Pat Davis, law professor Antoinette Sedillo Lopez, lawyer Damian Lara, physicist Dennis Dinge, Edgewood Mayor Pro Tem John Abrams and former state party chairwoman Debra Haaland, who would be the first Native American elected to Congress.