GOP primary draws two for open N.M. House seat
Which sort of Republican would voters in the East Mountains like to send to the Roundhouse?
Is it the strict constitutionalist who advocates a return to “traditional values” and vows to provide more conservative representation to residents of this Republican-leaning district that touches Southern Santa Fe County?
Or is it the handpicked successor of the bipartisan-inclined incumbent who emphasizes aquifer health, gross receipts tax reform and improved internet connectivity before social conservative chestnuts?
The race to replace four-term incumbent Jim Smith, the retired science teacher from House District 22 who recently stepped down, could in some ways be a bellwether for the direction of the Republican Party in New Mexico. It’s a contest between degrees of dogma that might illuminate how voters on the right prefer to approach what is widely expected to be a blue wave this fall.
The primary pits Dr. Gregg Schmedes, 36, a Texas-born surgeon and faculty member at the University of New Mexico who would be the Legislature’s only physician, against Merritt Hamilton Allen, 47, a Navy veteran who founded and leads a public relations firm and is the daughter of a longtime Silver City legislator.
Schmedes said he had planned to launch a primary challenge against Smith from the right and told Smith so last fall.
But Smith, recently appointed to the Bernalillo County Commission, opted to announce his retirement rather than seek a fifth term, changing the shape of the primary contest but not Schmedes’ approach.
“The first door I knocked on as a candidate, in Placitas, the woman started to cry,” said Schmedes, a father of five homeschooled children. “She said, ‘I am just so happy someone is running for office that is talking about traditional values and morality.’
“People were upset with what was going on with the voting,” he added. “They were ready for change. The voters of District 22 are looking for more conservative representation.”
Allen, who was asked to step into the race by the Smith, touts her conservative bona fides as well — “When it comes to values, I’m a business owner, veteran, gun owner, Catholic, bam, we’re done,” she said — but makes clear ideology is not her selling point.
“I’m the nicest Republican you know,” she said, hand extended, by way of introduction recently to a stranger at a coffee shop.
Although Allen enthusiastically critiques the “complacency” of the “monolith of one-party thought” in the Democrat-controlled Legislature, she draws a clear distinction between herself and Schmedes.
“My opponent is focused on knee-jerk national issues that I care about but are not as germane to state legislation,” she said.
“I’m an appropriator in a minority party,” she added. “We are part-time, unpaid legislators. The primary job is to pass a budget.”
Schmedes, who touts the endorsements of a New Mexico pro-life group and the Virginiabased Gun Owners of America, summarized the contest between Allen and himself as a “self-proclaimed establishment Republican versus grassroots conservatism.”
The district, which includes the communities of Tijeras and Edgewood in the south and Placitas and Algodones to the northwest, has more Republican voters than Democratic. Forty-seven percent voted for President Donald Trump in 2016, with 10 percent opting for Libertarian candidate and former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson.
It touches parts of three counties: Bernalillo, Sandoval and Santa Fe. Because Smith left the seat vacant, Gov. Susana Martinez has the opportunity to appoint a replacement who would serve through the November election, and each of the three counties recommended a different individual to the governor. Commissioners in Bernalillo recommended Allen; commissioners in Sandoval recommended Schmedes; and Santa Fe County commissioners recommended Jessica Velasquez, a small business owner and community organizer who is the lone Democratic candidate for the seat.
Martinez’s office did not respond when asked whether she planned to appoint a temporary replacement, presumably a Republican, before the June 5 primary election, a move that could boost one of the candidates.
Schmedes moved to Tijeras in 2016. Before that, he trained and practiced in South Carolina, Cameroon and Sweden. He studied engineering in Austin, Texas, his hometown, and earned a medical degree from Texas Tech University. At UNM he directs the salivary endoscopy program and leads apprenticeships, occasionally giving lectures. His surgery practice focuses on ear, nose and throat procedures as well as head and neck.
Allen was born in New Mexico and earned an economics degree at Notre Dame. She was then a Navy officer for seven years beginning in 1991, including a deployment in the Philippines, and later worked in Washington, D.C.
After a stint on the national news desk for the Pentagon, she went on to establish Vox Optima, a public relations firm of some 20 employees that provides strategic communications services for military agencies and international clients. She’s the daughter of former state Rep. Dianne Hamilton, a Silver City Republican who served nine terms beginning in 1998.
Both District 22 candidates, however deep their respective shades of red, return frequently to a common theme that is perhaps no surprise in a purple state that tends toward blue in the Rio Grande corridor: the need for bipartisan cooperation in Santa Fe, the kind demonstrated in the 2018 session, when House Speaker Brian Egolf, D-Santa Fe, and the now-retiring House Minority Leader Nate Gentry, R-Albuquerque, came together where they could.
Schmedes: “If policy comes only from the right, or only from the left, it will be of inferior quality.”
Allen: “I’m pleased with the steps taken to stop the polarization of the parties; I think a lot of that is just a message from the voters that they’re sick of it.”
On education, Allen said the state’s dysfunctional education system needed a dose of “local control,” and Schmedes likewise said he’d advocate for the end of Common Core standards.
“That’s what’s killing New Mexico,” Schmedes said. “Failing schools, crime and our poor economy. Those are the big issues to work on first and foremost.”
Asked which Smith votes in particular had rankled, Schmedes, a reserved, genial man with a quiet intensity, paused and pondered the matter in silence for several minutes.
“That has been reflected,” he said at last, “in a variety of issues including the state budget, education and … other issues that are important to grassroots conservatives.”
In a midterm election year most observers expect will function to some degree as a referendum on President Donald Trump, Schmedes, a political newcomer who not long ago retweeted Trump’s comments on protecting the Second Amendment, deflected a question about his alignment with the president’s views.
“If he says something I agree with, then I agree,” Schmedes said with a shrug. “There are some things I agree with and some things I disagree with. I’m in neither camp.”
Allen, asked about her evaluation of the president, cited her naval service. “Several times in my life, I’ve sworn an oath to defend the Constitution for the commander in chief. I take that seriously. I’m ready to do that again. More than anything, I think all of us should want our president to be successful.”