Former candidate for Senate prepping for another attempt
Mick Rich, a Republican who finished a distant second in a U.S. Senate race against incumbent Martin Heinrich and former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson two years ago, is preparing to run for the Senate again.
Rich, an Albuquerque contractor, said Friday he wasn’t ready to formally announce his candidacy but is putting together a team and developing a game plan before making it official that he will join the field of contenders to succeed retiring U.S. Sen. Tom Udall, D-N.M., in the 2020 election.
“We’re getting things lined up, but we’re not ready to
make a formal announcement,” he said. “We’re close, but we’re not ready.”
In an interview, however, the 65-year-old businessman sounded like a candidate whose campaign is already underway.
“You see our state the same way I do, right?” he asked. “You look at crime, the homicide rate, the overdose rate, what’s going on in our state — I can’t stand by and watch that.”
While Heinrich, a Democrat, won the 2018 race with about 54 percent of the vote, Rich said the next election would be different. He also said his secondplace finish in 2018 shouldn’t be diminished.
“In that last race, a … twotime ex-governor, two-time past presidential candidate came in a distant third,” he said, referring to Johnson, a Republican turned Libertarian.
“That’s not anything to minimize,” he said of his secondplace finish. “That was quite an accomplishment, and this next go-around, it’s only going to be Democrat and Republican on the ticket, and that’s huge.”
If he formally jumps into the race, Rich will face off against Gavin Clarkson in the Republican primary. U.S. Rep. Ben Ray Luján, D-N.M., New Mexico Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver and Giovanni Alexander Haquani are poised to face off in the Democratic primary for the Senate nomination.