The state Attorney General’s Office is about to have its first new leader in nearly a decade, and he’s hiring.
Democrat Raúl Torrez of Albuquerque was poised to become New Mexico’s top law enforcement official late Tuesday, capturing 57 percent of the votes cast statewide in his race against Republican Jeremy Gay, according to unofficial vote totals.
The position, long considered a potential launching pad to higher office, is being vacated by Hector Balderas, who is term limited. The job pays about $95,000 per year and carries the responsibility of overseeing an approximately $42 million annual budget and about 200 employees.
“I am truly honored and humbled by the trust and support of the people of New Mexico who have elected me to be their next Attorney General,” Torrez, 46, wrote in an email sent by his campaign several hours after the polls closed Tuesday.
Torrez, the Bernalillo County district attorney, thanked his wife and even Gay in the statement before adding he would work to improve the lives of New Mexicans.
“This election is just the beginning as we embark on the work to make our state a safer and more prosperous community for the future,” Torrez wrote. “We now must commit ourselves to pushing for common-sense solutions to make our communities safer, standing up for women’s reproductive rights, and protecting New Mexico’s most vulnerable citizens. I am ready for this fight and to work every day as the people’s lawyer.”
Gay, a lawyer from Gallup, conceded the race around 10:30 p.m. Tuesday.
“I am honored and humbled to have had the opportunity to be considered by New Mexican voters for the office of the Attorney General,” he said in a news release sent by a spokesperson. “Although I am disappointed by the final results, I am so proud of the work we did to get this far. My congratulations to Raúl Torrez in his election.”
Torrez — who will leave his second term as the Albuquerque-area DA nearly two years early to assume the Attorney General’s job in January and has advocated retooling the state’s pretrial detention statutes — said in a phone interview Tuesday he’s excited to tackle issues of public safety and criminal justice reform.
He said one of the first things he intends to do is hire more assistant attorneys general.
“One of the things we talked about throughout the campaign is to really match the size of the agency with the expectations and authority [of the office],” he said.
Torrez said the AG’s Office currently doesn’t have enough attorneys to engage in “impact litigation” on the consumer protection and environmental fronts without having to outsource the work to private law firms, as was the practice during Balderas’ administration.
Torrez’s father recently retired after 45 years as a federal prosecutor.
The product of a gold-plated education — he attended Harvard University, Stanford Law School and the London School of Economics — Torrez has spent much of his legal career as a prosecutor at the county, state and federal levels.
Gay — a 33-year-old former Marine now working in private practice and a self-described “unknown political outsider” who had the disadvantage of running as a Republican in a state that hasn’t elected a Republican AG since the 1980s — wrote in an email the race “proved to be a closer contest than could have been expected.”
Initial vote tallies published by the Secretary of State late Tuesday showed support for the candidates fell along predictable geographical lines, with Torrez winning counties that historically vote blue while Gay performed well in the more conservative counties near the state’s southern and eastern borders.
Torrez trounced Gay in Santa Fe County — leading his opponent 78 percent to 21 percent late Tuesday — and dominated Bernalillo County, where he was ahead by 23 percentage points.
