Rep. Gabe Vasquez (D., New Mexico) prevailed in his race against former Rep. Yvette Herrell (R.) for a second time after ousting her in 2022.
Vasquez, previously a Las Cruces City Council member whose campaign was marred by several scandals, led his opponent by 3 points with 97 percent of the vote reported when the Associated Press called the race for New Mexico’s Second Congressional District just before 2 a.m. Wednesday. Herrell, a businesswoman previously elected to the House of Representatives in 2020, was vying to regain the seat she had lost to Vasquez.
Tuesday’s election was expected to be tight after redistricting swapped conservative terrain in the east of the state for more Democratic territory in Albuquerque. Vasquez narrowly won his 2022 race against Herrell, campaigning on climate change in a district traditionally dominated by the oil and natural gas industry. This cycle, Vasquez raked in $2.5 million more than his opponent.
The Democrat portrayed himself as a strong supporter of border security and law enforcement—a stark contrast to his previous support to defund the police. The Washington Free Beacon, however, uncovered several encounters Vasquez had with police over the years.
In March, police in El Paso, Texas, executed an arrest warrant against Vasquez, according to court documents obtained by the Free Beacon. The Democrat had failed to appear in court in 2002 after he was charged with driving without a license, driving without insurance, and disregarding an “official traffic control device,” the documents show. Police subsequently cited him for a failure to appear in court in September 2007 and issued a warrant for his arrest in April 2008.
And as a New Mexico State University student in 2004, Vasquez harassed an employee at a call center from which he had been fired, another Free Beacon report found. Vasquez phoned the company several times calling a black coworker a “n—er,” according to the police report. The revelation was at odds with his public image given that he embraced the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020 and had called to “rebuild the systems of oppression that keep black people in perpetual harm.”
A 2005 police report revealed that law enforcement, sent to respond to a noise complaint, caught Vasquez rolling a blunt. When police knocked on the door, Vasquez attempted to flush the marijuana down the toilet but was arrested before doing so.
Two years later, Vasquez was involved in a domestic dispute with his girlfriend at the time, according to a police report. Vasquez asked her before hosting a party “not to drink so much because she just turned 21 and she gets kind of wild when she drinks.” Later, the report indicates, Vasquez “noticed that she kept drinking and after having a few too many she began getting a little wild and dancing in front of his friends.” An argument ensued after Vasquez confronted her, prompting the police to visit his home “in reference to a possible domestic,” the report said.
