Hector Balderas' Senate Campaign Comes to Las Cruces

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Contributing writer Stephen Jones checks in with more on-the-ground coverage from Southern New Mexico.

On Saturday State Auditor and U.S. Senate candidate Hector Balderas was in southern New Mexico and spoke to a packed house of local residents and area campaign supporters at Roberto's, a local restaurant in Las Cruces, for a campaign "meet and greet." Balderas, who announced his candidacy for the Senate just over two months ago, made the trip south to bring his campaign and introduce his candidacy to New Mexico's second largest city, and ask for support.  

"I'm here today, because there are things in this country are not going well," Balderas said. "If each of you and your families had to sit around the kitchen tables in your homes and look honestly at what's going on in our country, you would agree that something needs to be done urgently. If you think of what's going on in Washington, you should be worried about your future, and the future of your children. Unfortunately partisan politics is not solving the problems in our nation that you and I would be working on in our households, to solve if you were in the same situation," he continued.

"I'm here, to ask for your support, as an underdog in this contest, because there are people in this country who don't want to invest in our future and our public schools," Balderas said. "They don't want to invest anymore in the environment. They don't want to invest anymore in consumer protection. They don't want to invest anymore in the poorest Americans or the elderly. They don't want to invest anymore in our health care. They want to pass that on to the states, and if the states run out of money, so be it."

Throughout his speech Balderas stressed his campaign themes of fiscal responsibility and what he termed "New Mexico values." He said, "I'm running for the United States Senate, because I believe we need someone from outside of Washington. I'm running because I believe we need a voice of reason, and because I believe you want to elect a person who will tell it to you straight."

"Imagine a U.S Senator who will come back home to work with the public schools," Balderas stated. "A Senator who will sit down with school boards across this state to solve our education problems. Imagine a U.S. Senator who will sit down with parents, with families, and with taxpayers, so that we can really begin to talk about the American dream. For me it isn't about politics. Some of you may not know much about me because you haven't seen me on T.V., but I want you to know that in every job I ever had, I went home. I went home to work for good schools, for the environment, for health care, for clean rural energy," Hector said.

Balderas also pointed to his background as someone who grew up and represented a small rural community in the legislature, before his election as State Auditor five years ago. "I grew up poor, and I went to public schools in Wagon Mound before going off to college in Albuquerque, but I went home again, Balderas said. "When that small rural community in Mora County sent me off to the legislature as the first young lawyer to ever serve them in Santa Fe, I was proud to give back. I was so humbled, at the age of 29, to be chosen by that community to serve in our New Mexico citizen Legislature, for no pay, and to work to protect the environment, to work for our schools, and to come together to work with others in the legislature to solve common problems, to make my community better, and to work to do the same for other communities, like mine, in our remarkable diverse state," he said.

"I can guarantee you, as a U.S. Senator, in one of the most influential elected offices in our nation, I will make you proud. We're going to make history in this state, and I promise, we're going to make you proud," Hector Balderas said.

State Representatives Antonio Luján (D-Doña Ana) and Mary Helen Garcia (D-Doña Ana) also addressed the gathering. Both Luján and Garcia have endorsed Balderas.

Photos by Stephen Jones. To see more posts by Stephen, visit our archive.