Herrell Election Kickoff Pulling the Big Guns Early - Kevin McCarthy

Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy attended a rally in Las Cruces New Mexico on Monday for former U.S. Rep. Yvette Herrell of Alamogordo, as the GOP tries to flip a congressional swing seat back to GOP control in 2024.

Herrell lost her 2022 reelection bid to Democratic Congressman Gabe Vasquez in the majority-Hispanic district along the U.S. border with Mexico.

The state's Farm and Ranch Heritage Museum in Las Cruces was the backdrop for Herrell's announcement that she will seek the Republican nomination yet again, amid supportive appearances by some state legislators.

Republicans have nominated Herrell on three previous occasions to seek the 2nd District seat. She lost an open race in 2016 and returned in 2018 to unseat former Congresswoman Xochitl Torres Small.

Republicans are separately challenging the new outline of the 2nd District in proceedings before the New Mexico Supreme Court. Political boundaries were changed under a redistricting plan from Democratic lawmakers that divvied up a politically conservative oilfield region among three congressional districts. Herrell was narrowly defeated by Congressman Gabe Vasquez. 

Herrell last year embraced a Trumpian leaning platform of strict border security and unfettered support for the oil industry. The district as recently redrawn stretches from the U.S. border with Mexico across desert oilfields and parts of Albuquerque.

Vasquez won the seat while highlighting his Latino heritage and an upbringing along the border in a working-class, immigrant family. He advocated for solutions to climate change and efforts to ensure access to abortion.

”We need to take our seat back we need to take our country back," said Herrell. "We need somebody who’ll go to Washington D.C. and vote for the values of the second congressional district for New Mexico and quite frankly for the nation."

“We've got to get God back in the conversation," Herrell said during her speech just before declaring her intentions to run again.

The U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R - California) joined Herrell in announcing the run. And, despite the fact that Monday was Herrell's big day, much of the rally featured McCarthy declaring promises he's made as Speaker have been kept and decrying an America beset by social ills.

McCarthy, who aligned himself with former President Donald Trump, voted against the certification of the 2020 presidential election. Herrell also voted against certifying that election after the Jan. 6 sone classify as an insurrection disrupted the normally mundane process.

McCarthy isn't the first Republican Party headliner to stand next to Herrell for a campaign event in Las Cruces. In 2022, controversial Texan, Ted Cruz made Las Cruces a stop in his national stumping campaign for Republican candidates.

Some believe she lost because she did not do the groundwork of wholesale politics getting down and dirty with constituents. Some believe she expected the Trumpian coat takes to carry her to victory but Herrell lost the bid for reelection to New Mexico's 2nd Congressional District to Gabe Vasquez in 2022.

At the time, Herrell said the loss was a result of "gerrymandering" in the congressional district following a redistricting effort that stretched the second congressional district north into the Democrat stronghold of Bernalillo County and divided southeastern New Mexico's conservative oil country.

Almost immediately after the loss, Herrell filed a statement of candidacy with the Federal Elections Commission indicating her intention to run again in 2024.

The legislative session is just moving into full swing, with Gabe Vasquez only just swore in in January. Herrell has taken to the road already and bringing in the big guns of McCarthy to kick of the 2024 election run, just 4 months into the new term, putting immediate pressure and national attention on the District 2 New Mexico Congressional seat. 

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