GOP nominee quits secretary of state race
Candidate says she wants to focus on family, but faces lawsuits and had uphill fight in campaign
JoHanna Cox, the Republican nominee for secretary of state, dropped out of the race Wednesday, and her party leaders scrambled to find a replacement.
Cox, a former prosecutor and political novice from Santa Fe, said in a statement that she was withdrawing to focus on her family. But her announcement also came amid mounting lawsuits accusing her of legal malpractice.
The timing of the move — about a week after the primary election — allows the state Republican Party to pick another candidate to take her place on the ballot in November.
“As a single mother who runs her own law practice, it was never easy to balance my fulltime commitments with the demands of a statewide political campaign,” Cox said in a statement.
She faced long odds in her bid to unseat Democratic incumbent Maggie Toulouse Oliver.
Cox had raised about $5,000 while Toulouse Oliver had about $142,000 on hand as of late May. And Toulouse Oliver has boosted her profile since winning the office with a decisive majority of the vote in 2016, taking to national television to speak on hot issues such as election security.
Moreover, the Albuquerque Journal spotlighted Cox’s mounting legal challenges earlier this month. A nude nightclub she has represented sued, accusing her of malpractice. So did a union representing police officers.
Cox was the only Republican to run for
the party’s nomination in a year when higher-profile members of the GOP have been expecting a Democratic wave.
She did not respond to a message seeking comment. Curiously, too, for a candidate who had embraced Twitter, she did not say anything about her withdrawal on the social media website.
“We are grateful to JoHanna Cox for taking on the challenge of running for office,” state Republican Party Chairman Ryan Cangiolosi said. “While we applaud her desire to serve the citizens of New Mexico, we understand that family comes first and certainly respect her decision to withdraw from the race to focus on her loved ones.”
Cangiolosi said the state party’s central committee would convene “as soon as possible to select a new nominee.”
Toulouse Oliver was unopposed in the Democratic primary. Along with the next Republican nominee, she will face Libertarian Sandra Jeff in the general election.
Toulouse Oliver was elected in 2016 to finish out the last two years of Republican Dianna Duran’s term. Duran had resigned before pleading guilty to six crimes, two of them felonies, in a case where she used campaign funds to finance a gambling addiction. Duran
served 30 days in jail.
Toulouse Oliver defeated then-state Rep. Nora Espinoza, taking 56 percent of the vote in a race that in some ways became a proxy for the national debate over elections.
Espinoza raised concerns about voter fraud while Toulouse Oliver touted the state’s paper ballot system and supported automatic voter registration.
Now that the remainder of Duran’s term is almost over, Toulouse Oliver is running for re-election to a four-year term. While Republicans — including national groups such as Americans for Prosperity — have attacked Toulouse Oliver as too partisan, particularly after she toughened policies on so-called dark money, the right has not fielded a high-profile candidate to challenge her.