Early in-person voting started last week and runs through May 29, for the June 1 special election in New Mexico’s Congressional District 1, which is home to the Sandia National Laboratories.
The seat was vacated by Rep. Debra Haaland (D), she was confirmed as the Joe Biden administration’s secretary of interior on March 16.
The special election pits state Rep. Melanie Stansbury, a Democrat, against state Sen. Mark Moores, a Republican, as well as Libertarian Christopher Manning and Independent Aubrey Dunn, according to the Ballotpedia website.
Both Stansbury and Moores were nominated in their parties’ respective conventions during March.
Stansbury is a one-time consultant to Sandia National Laboratories and was a congressional staffer for the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources between 2015 and 2017, according to her LinkedIn biography. Moores is a former chief of staff for a former New Mexico lieutenant governor, Walter Dwight Bradley and is a former executive director of the New Mexico Dental Association, according to an online biography.
Biden carried this congressional district in November with 60% of the vote. The district has not elected a Republican to Congress since then-Rep. Heather Wilson gave up the seat in 2008 to make an unsuccessful run for the U.S. Senate. Wilson later served for two years as President Donald Trump’s undersecretary of the Air Force, according to Ballotpedia.
