New Mexico’s Republican Party is in disarray.
Its Chair, Amy Barela, is gone by court-order, after blatant misconduct. A meeting to select a replacement lacked a quorum. Then Republican State Treasurer Kimberly Skaggs, a three-time candidate for the state legislature and former county chair here, was rapidly erased from the party’s website as she faced unrelated criminal charges.
Barela got tossed after party members accused her of using her position to benefit her own campaign in Republican primary for the Otero County Commission. The court held that Barela couldn’t both serve as party chair and run in a primary for the party’s nomination as Otero County Commissioner. Doesn’t that seem pretty obvious? Repeated Republican efforts to toss Duke Rodriguez off the ballot triggered a lawsuit, with plaintiffs claiming Rodriguez couldn’t legally run for governor; but the New Mexico Supreme Court held unanimously that he could. None of this speaks well of state Republican leadership.
Republicans, this is a time to reexamine how and why you’re doing what you do, and perhaps improve your chances.
Maybe you could revive the party by returning to Republican ideals and abandoning Trump-worship. Here, he is the elephant every Republican in every room must address. During our affordability crisis, he reports income for 2024 of about $600 million, but for 2025, as president, $2.2 billion, much of that from cryptocurrency investments by the United Arab Emirates. He’s driven some prominent state Republicans DTS.
Mr. Trump was known to be a racist long before he ran for public office. Racism cannot be a good basic theme for a political party in a state where “non-Hispanic whites make up only 36 per cent of the population. Here, bowing to a racist leader guarantees permanent minority status.
Republicans know this. Some current Republican candidates have re-tuned their campaign pitches to highlight the undesirability of a one-party state political system, rather than details of their plans or ideologies.
As many Republicans [Pence, the Cheneys and Bushes, Adam Kinzinger, Bill Cassidy, Thomas Massie, ThomTillis, and Tucker Carlson ]have recognized (and many other prominent Republicans said before saying it became so dangerous) – the demented narcissist in the White House is a broken and angry human being deciding everything solely on what’s good for him, with little interest in our nation or its ideals. He’s endangering our democratic values, prosperity, rule of law, and national security, all of which Republicans traditionally value.
Following him, as his declining poll numbers suggest, is quite like following the Hamelin Pied Piper. Or your fellow lemmings. Personal anger and revenge are not a promising long-term political approach.
You Republicans had a consistent political program with which I largely disagreed: what’s good for our top businesses is good for us; the government should do less to protect people from business fraud, environmental degradation, and climate craziness; not to bother with universal heath care, as all civilized nations do; our widening financial gap between the wealthiest and us is no problem; zealous attention to fiscal responsIbility (not spending fortunes on ballrooms or unnecessary wars; and probably more emphasis on national security than I’d suggest, although Trump/Hegseth undermine national security.
Most of you know, in your hearts, that you have followed a beguiling but wrong path that has endangered our country, our democratic values, and your own political future. Changing course will not be as simple as retracing your steps when lost in a forest; but it’s essential.
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[The above column appeared on the 4th of July, 2026, in the Las Cruces Sun-News and on the newspaper's s website and will be(presently) on KRWG’s website. A shortened and sharpened radio commentary version of this Sunday column will air during the week on KRWG (90.1 FM) and on KTAL-LP (101.5 FM / ]
[ The Skaggs news saddens me. Logically, I likely should chortle that someone I had criticized is no longer in power. Less logically, I feel sad – obviously for her bicyclist victim, first, but also that someone I had spoken to, and even lunched with, is sitting in jail. Sure, she acted wrongly and dangerously. But I never forget that as fast and drunk as I consistently drove in my youth, I am lucky I didn’t kill someone too. That discourages judging others. ]
[ The basic point, that New Mexico Republicans need to disown Mr. Trump and get back to business, seems abundantly sensible. And Mr. Trump makes it all the more so each day. ]
