I don’t want to write another “The Republican Party of New Mexico has no bench” column because it’s a little like rehashing the sun coming up in the east and setting in the west. Duh.
But if Mark Ronchetti can’t claw his way past Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham in the governor’s race Tuesday, you can take a wrecking ball to the crystal ball for the men and women in red. There’s no telling which way the Grand Old Party will go.
First, let’s start with this election.
Does Ronchetti have a shot in a couple of days? Yes, a puncher’s chance. Smart money is on the governor, but there’s enough shimmy in the polls — and enough frustration with Lujan Grisham; some manufactured, some very real — that keeps the potential for a stunning upset in play.
But let’s say Lujan Grisham survives, and the rest of the Republican slate — give or take Yvette Herrell in the 2nd Congressional District — goes down in flames, a likely scenario. That leaves four more years of Democratic Party hegemony and Republicans even further behind than they were in this election cycle, if that’s possible.
What then?
A smart party will hang onto Ronchetti with both hands. He’s bad news for Democrats in that he can zero in on their political weaknesses, voice them succinctly, and yet, not scare the hell out of light-blue Ds like Rebecca Dow, a potential comer in the GOP whose primary campaign fizzled like a wet bottle rocket when she failed to realize New Mexico extends past the borders of Truth or Consequences.
Ronchetti also has this in his pocket: Though some of his fundraising prowess is a function of a tough, high-profile race, he’s proven he can raise scads of money. He also never has to worry about name recognition. That means two losses in two years aren’t a death knell for his political career, the way they might have been at one time.
In the meantime, Republicans have to start looking for others who might be electable, which means they have to find someone who can actually find a contender. Clearly, that’s not Steve Pearce, currently the head of the state Republican Party. But it’s got to be somebody who understands New Mexico, at its core, is as purple as it is red or blue.
That task won’t be easy.
The Republicans went about a search-and-destroy mission on moderates over a two-decade period, erasing themselves from the Albuquerque area in the process and retreating into the weeds of Fox News diehards. I know it seems crazy right now, given the bitter and polarized world we live in, but after a near-decade of knocking their heads against the hardline wall, moderation could get sexy again in a few years. To be ready for that, maybe it’s time for the GOP to start looking for a leader who understands winning elections is a lot more fun than mouthing party dogma that emanates from Washington.
He’ll laugh when he reads this, but if I were the GOP, I’d go to state Sen. Mark Moores and ask him to head the state GOP. He got his tail kicked by Melanie Stansbury in the 1st Congressional District race not long ago — in part because he made the same mistakes other Republicans do — but is smart, well acquainted with the 21st century and knows what moves people in the state’s largest city, with its treasure trove of votes.
If not Moores, why not Susana Martinez? There’s a rumor out there to that effect. She’s not exactly a moderate, and maybe she’d want to take a shot at a U.S. Senate seat someday, but she’s actually won statewide elections and would give her party an internal discipline and external credibility.
If the ’22 election goes badly, will there be opportunities for Republicans? Under the right circumstances, absolutely. The ’24 election will be dominated by a presidential contest in which the incumbent Democrat is vulnerable, which in turn could set the table for ‘26. If she wins Tuesday, Lujan Grisham will be completing a second term. As a general rule, those are rocky, messy affairs. Just ask Martinez or Democrat Bill Richardson.
After eight years with a Democrat on the fourth floor of the Roundhouse and a Legislature also dominated by Ds, New Mexico might be ready for a change. It’s not crazy for Republicans to start planning for that possibility. But that means adjusting to reality, and finding potential candidates who aren’t strident, who don’t list Clarence Thomas as one of their heroes, who don’t see a bizarre honor in questioning without basis the integrity of elections; the core of the freedom they purport to care about.
Maybe such candidates aren’t out there. If not, the first Tuesday in November will remain as predictable as the sun coming up in the east and …
