Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver had nothing to do with the Republican lack of Senate candidate. Christopher Vanden Heuval raised his hand in December, because he saw no Republican candidate and did not want Ben Ray Lujan to run without a challenger. Christopher called the Republican Party of New Mexico to tell them he was running. He was told RPNM had a candidate and was denied tools like GOP Data Center, a basic tool for reaching voters.

Christopher is a 73-year-old good guy from Sandoval County, with no political experience, no money, and no campaign or volunteer team, who did figure out how to get on the electronic petitions but not how to print a paper petitions. He believed that when Republicans saw there was no other candidate they would automatically sign his petition. He made an effort to show up at a majority of the county pre-primary conventions.

On January 31 he received a call followed by an email from the RPNM exec director inquiring about the number of signatures in his possession.

As a Bernalillo county activist, I am sad and angry about this situation, because we have begged to be notified about candidates running statewide and were told repeatedly that our role is GOTV (Get Out the Vote) only.

As you can see, we must have candidates before GOTV.

In Bernalillo, we have worked for months to identify candidates for State House and County positions. It is a terrible situation. Today we have 8 candidates for 23 State House seats, 1 for 2 County Commission seats, 1 for 2 Metro court seats and no candidates for Sheriff, Assessor or Probate judge. Experienced prospects and new to politics prospects reject running because they see no path to victory. Then we ask if they will be on the ballot, just to make the Ds spend money. We continue recruiting and helping candidates get on the ballot.

In summary, there are two causes for the lack of a US Senate candidate
1. RPNM failed to recruit a candidate;
2. Republicans and our business community have given up on New Mexico or do not realize how important it is to be willing to run and serve.

Janice E. Arnold-Jones
Former New Mexico State Representative