In his first attempt at elected office, Democrat and retired Capt. Harold Pope Jr. unseated Republican Sen. Sander Rue, who is white, and held the suburban district since 2009.<\/p>\n
Tuesday\u2019s election is transforming both chambers of the Legislature to more closely reflect New Mexico\u2019s demographics. For the first time, the House will be the majority female, with 37 women out of 70 representatives, up from 32.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s likely that three more state Senate seats will be held by women, increasing the total to 12, or less than one-third of the 42-person chamber.<\/p>\n
On the northwestern reaches of Albuquerque, Pope\u2019s district is about 2.5% Black, similar to the low statewide number. Pope made education and the coronavirus, not race, the focal points of his campaign.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe might have some budget shortfalls right now or some issues with the budget. But for me the fight we still have to continue (is) to properly fund public education,\u201d Pope said Thursday.<\/p>\n
The coronavirus pandemic was top of mind for many voters in New Mexico, who handed the state\u2019s five electoral votes to Joe Biden.<\/p>\n
Thirty-nine percent said the pandemic is the most important issue facing the country, according to AP\u2019s VoteCast survey of 1,654 state voters in a mix of English and Spanish, with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.6 percentage points. Voters also considered the economy a major issue, with 29% saying it ranked at the top. Seven percent named climate change, 7% named health care and 6% named racism.<\/p>\n
Pope said if anything in his background helped him get elected, it was his military service.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would call folks who were Republicans. And just because I was in the military and they were a veteran, they at least gave me the opportunity to have a conversation with them. And I did get some of those votes because of that,\u201d Pope said.<\/p>\n
In a state Legislature known for its ranchers and lawyers, Pope will bring experience as a program manager for the Air Force, where he said he worked to usher multibillion-dollar technology contracts in new satellite and airplane technologies.<\/p>\n
That perspective could serve the Senate\u2019s collective wisdom as it considers addressing deficiencies in broadband infrastructure laid bare by the coronavirus pandemic that is limiting access to telehealth and online education.<\/p>\n
Pope said he\u2019s proud to be a \u201cfirst,\u201d though he wasn\u2019t aware of the history of Black representation in the Senate until some told him after announcing his run.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe way I look at it as me being in office right now, it\u2019s giving young African Americans and Indigenous \u2013 people of color \u2013 they\u2019re seeing someone that looks more like them. And it\u2019s letting them know that, hey, he did it,\u201d Pope said.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s celebrating the victories of fellow progressives Carrie Hamblen of Las Cruces and Leo Jaramillo of Rio Arriba County, who will increase the number of openly LGBTQ senators from two to four.<\/p>\n
They are part of a crop of seven newly elected progressive Democrats that could push through a stalled agenda to legalize recreational marijuana, expand pre-kindergarten and change existing laws that would criminalize abortion were federal protections overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court.<\/p>\n
New Mexico became a state in 1912. It elected its first Black representative, Lenton Malry, in 1968, according to the Legislative Council Service. Like Pope, Malry is a retired Air Force veteran who lives in Albuquerque.<\/p>\n
Popes\u2019 milestone was first reported by Santa Fe New Mexican<\/em> columnist Milan Simonich.<\/p>\n Staff Writer Morgan Lee contributed reporting.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In his first attempt at elected office, Democrat and retired Capt. Harold Pope Jr. unseated Republican Sen. Sander Rue, who is white, and held the suburban district since 2009. Tuesday\u2019s election is transforming both chambers of the Legislature to more closely reflect New Mexico\u2019s demographics. For the first time, the House will be the majority […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-50561","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-headlines"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50561","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50561"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50561\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50561"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=50561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}