Jerome Block Jr., who overcame multiple scandals and numerous defections from within his own party, easily won his contentious Public Regulation Commission District 3 race Tuesday night..

The Democrat had 56.2 percent of the reported votes to Green Party member Rick Lass' 43.8 percent in one of New Mexico's most heated contests. No Republican was on the ballot.

Winning a $90,000-a-year state position once held by his father, Block's legal troubles might not be over; the Secretary of State's Office is still investigating his campaign finances.

Block appeared confident as he hung out with friends and family at his home in La Puebla, where they watched election coverage on a living-room television.

"I'm just happy that the voters vote," he said later, after The Associated Press called the race for him at 10:30 p.m. "I'm confident in my abilities to represent properly, and I can't wait to get my hands on the position. And four years from now, I won't have any of the negativity and missteps that have surrounded this campaign."

Block said he voted in person Tuesday but declined to say whether he backed any of the Democrats who chose not to endorse him after his legal troubles grew. "I'm just going to keep that private," he said, adding after a pause, "I just want you to know I am a strong, loyal Democrat."

Lass made a strong showing in Santa Fe County, where he had the backing of a Democratic political action committee and numerous local politicians. Lass had 62.7 percent of the vote in the county to Block's 37.3 percent, but that didn't make up for Block's dominance in the more rural areas of the Democrat-heavy, 13-county district, which includes parts of north-central and northeastern New Mexico. The Green candidate also had to overcome a strong year for Democrats, including down-ballot candidates who benefited from straight-ticket voting.

Lass and his supporters were part of a more raucous gathering at Second Street Brewery in Santa Fe, where a band played as the packed crowd watched election results on large-screen TVs.

Lass said he figured he needed 65 percent of the votes in Santa Fe County to have a chance of winning. He learned he had won Republican-leaning Los Alamos County, but was disappointed about his showing in Bernalillo County. He was still waiting to hear from Sandoval County, where he made repeated trips in recent days in hopes of picking up Republican votes, and San Miguel and Taos counties.

Block won in San Miguel County, 59 percent to 41 percent; Rio Arriba County, 70.5 percent to 29.5 percent; Taos County, 59.2 percent to 40.8 percent; and Sandoval County, 63.5 percent to 36.5 percent.

Lass said he was proud of his campaign and stuck to running a largely positive campaign rather than taking a sharper tone with Block's legal troubles, as some supporters advised.

"I had a number of people say that I should have run a more negative campaign," Lass said, "but that's not the type of campaign I wanted to have."

Lass and Block engaged in a fierce, months-long war of words, with Lass calling Block a "crooked politician" who can't tell the truth and rides the coattails of his father, a former PRC member. Block accused Lass of trying to downplay his Green Party affiliation while bringing up his domestic violence conviction from 10 years ago — about the time Block was arrested in two separate cases on drunken driving and disorderly conduct charges.

The candidates faced off in just one forum to discuss the issues, which played a back seat during the campaign.

Block, 31, won a six-way primary in June with 23 percent of the vote but soon came under fire for not telling the complete truth about his arrest record. The heat increased when he misspent his public campaign money — first $2,500 to the San Miguel County clerk's country band for a rally performance that never occurred, then $700 to help Hillary Clinton get rid of her presidential campaign debt.

The Secretary of State's Office this week ordered Block to pay $21,700 in fines and reimbursements, and additional expenditures remain under investigation. He declined to say Tuesday night whether he will take the matter to arbitration.

As Block's controversies piled up, the Democrat managed to pick up no endorsements from key party members such as Gov. Bill Richardson and U.S. Rep.-elect Ben Ray Luján.

Block's father is a lobbyist for Mescalero Apache Telecom Inc., and Block Jr. has said he would recuse himself from cases involving the company but would look "case-by-case" at MATI's competitors. As a former title company manager, he has been less clear about whether he would support title insurance reform.

As in the primary, there was some confusion among voters over whether Block Jr. or his father was on the ballot. "I voted for Jerome Block because my best friend worked for him for years," Kristen Hicks, 25, said after casting her ballot at Larragoite Elementary School on the west side.

She said her friend's former boss worked in the PERA Building, home of the PRC, and was probably in his 50s.

Earlier, Michael Waggoner, 29, said he voted for Lass. "I've been hearing they're both less than brilliant," he said. "I went on a friend's opinion, basically."

At Atalaya Elementary, on the east side, a number of St. John's College students said they voted for Lass because he was a Green, although they hadn't been following his campaign.

Francesca Lobato, an East Side voter, went with Lass. "Well, do we want to vote for a known criminal or an unknown criminal?" she said, partly referring to the money Block gave to the San Miguel County clerk. "Presumably it was money for votes, right? That's the logical conclusion."

Contact Doug Mattson at 986-3087 or dmattson@sfnewmexican.com.