Alamogordo NM
11-02-2026 8:40pm

Otero County Commission: Emery vs. Lambert

Otero County voters will settle the District 2 County Commission seat on Tuesday, November 3, choosing between Republican Jonathan T. Emery and independent Evan Christopher Lambert Ross. Both men are running as outsiders against the political class. That shared message divided the New Mexico Conservative News editorial board, and this year it is not offering a single endorsement.

Some board members backed Emery for his decades in uniform and his willingness to take on his own party's establishment in the June primary.

Others backed Lambert, arguing that voters are ready to move past incumbents and party organizations altogether

Below is how the two candidates compare, drawn from their campaign websites and public statements.

Jonathan Emery: the lawman who beat the machine

Emery is an Air Force veteran who describes himself on his campaign site as an OEF/OIF combat veteran. He spent his career in local law enforcement, beginning with the Alamogordo Police Department in 2006 and joining the Otero County Sheriff's Office in 2009, where he rose from deputy to sergeant to lieutenant before retiring this year.

His biggest political credential is how he got on the November ballot. In January he challenged incumbent Commissioner Amy Barela, who at the time also chaired the Republican Party of New Mexico.

The race drew a lawsuit and a statewide debate over whether Barela could keep the party chair while facing a Republican challenger. On June 2, Emery won the primary with 879 votes, 51 percent, a 45-vote margin over the sitting commissioner and party chair.

Emery's website frames his campaign around "Faith, Family, Service" and conservative New Mexico values. His stated priorities:

  • Public safety: support for law enforcement and safe neighborhoods.
  • Responsible spending: protecting taxpayer dollars and an efficient, transparent county government.
  • Strong local communities: families, infrastructure and responsible growth across District 2.
  • Mental health: county support for resources, informed by what he saw on patrol.
  • Technology: he rebuilt much of the county's network infrastructure and the new dispatch center technology.
  • Not a career politician: a campaign he says is funded by individuals, not corporate money.

Evan Lambert: the independent with no party to answer to

Evan Lambert moved to Alamogordo from Bakersfield, California, in 2020 to care for his mother, a retired Navy chief. He is raising a young son here. He filed as a Declined-to-State independent on June 25, ensuring Emery would not walk into the seat unopposed. Last year he ran for Alamogordo City Commission District 2 and lost to incumbent Stephen Burnett.

He founded and leads Community Power New Mexico, a nonprofit that runs the Otero County Labor Hub, a free tool library and materials bank on Indiana Avenue. It also runs Building Futures, which steers at-risk youth toward the trades. On his campaign site, he says he will work with anyone regardless of party and does not want to be a career politician.

His platform centers on families, affordability, jobs and accountability:

  • Housing: enforce standards on negligent and absentee property owners, return vacant units to use, create a public land bank, and start a landlord registry that reports rents.
  • Wages and jobs: raise wage standards to match local costs, with the county offsetting the cost for locally owned businesses; keep public investment and workforce training in the county.
  • Families: he cites a 33.7 percent child poverty rate in Otero County.
  • Representation: expand the commission from three seats to five, giving Chaparral and the Mescalero Apache Reservation their own seats, and create community councils that help set the county agenda.
  • Accountability: plain-language public records, budgets and contracts; a transparency overhaul of the Sheriff's Office, commission and administration; and an audit of Flock license-plate cameras.
  • Water: treat brackish groundwater and scrutinize water use by data centers, per a KRWG interview.

Where they agree, and where they split

Both men reject the label of career politician, both promise a more transparent county government, and both say District 2 has been governed from a distance. 

Both also tout grassroots, small-dollar campaigns. The difference is what each would do with the seat.

Two kinds of outsider

Emery's claim to outsider status was earned inside the Republican Party. He did not leave the GOP to fight its establishment; he stayed in and beat it, unseating a sitting commissioner who also chaired the state party

Lambert’s claim rests on standing outside the party system entirely. He filed as a Declined-to-State candidate and says he will work with anyone, regardless of label. One man is a reformer from within; the other wants to bypass the parties altogether.

Two kinds of résumé. Emery brings decades of institutional experience. He served in the Air Force, then spent his career in local law enforcement, rising to lieutenant at the Sheriff's Office. He also helped rebuild the county's network infrastructure and the dispatch center's technology, so he knows county operations from the inside.

Lambert’s experience comes from the nonprofit world. He built Community Power New Mexico from the ground up, running a free tool library and a youth trades program. Emery knows how county government works today. Lambert has spent his time working around its gaps.

Two views of public safety. For Emery, public safety means backing law enforcement and keeping neighborhoods safe, a priority shaped by years on patrol. He also says his work as a deputy showed him how mental health struggles affect local families, and he wants the county to support those resources

Lambert approaches public safety through oversight. He wants a transparency overhaul of the Sheriff's Office, changes to its hiring and public reporting, and an audit of the county's Flock license-plate cameras.

One sees law enforcement as a partner to strengthen; the other sees it as an institution to hold more tightly to account.

Two views of the county's job- This is the deepest divide

Emery's platform is rooted in conservative principles: protect taxpayer dollars, keep government efficient and focus on core services like roads, infrastructure and responsible growth.

Lambert envisions a far more active county. He wants a public land bank, a landlord registry that tracks rents, higher local wage standards with county offsets for local employers, and public investment steered toward keeping money in Otero County. 

For voters worried about spending, Emery's approach is the safer bet.

For voters worried about rent and wages, Lambert offers more concrete proposals.

Two views of representation. Both candidates say District 2 has been governed from a distance.

Emery's answer is better leadership: a commissioner who listens and answers to the people.

Lambert’s answer is structural. He would expand the commission from three seats to five, giving Chaparral and the Mescalero Apache Reservation their own voice, and create community councils that help set the county agenda before votes are taken.

Emery would change who sits in the chair

Lambert would change how many chairs there are and who sets the agenda.

Why our board split

The case for Emery. Board members who favored Emery pointed first to his law enforcement record. Otero County is a public-safety county, and few candidates know its roads, dispatch systems and deputies as well as a retiring sheriff's lieutenant.

They also credited his primary run. Emery took on the Republican establishment on principle, challenging a sitting commissioner who also chaired the state party, and he beat the machine-backed incumbent. 

To these members, that is proof he answers to voters, not party bosses.

The case for Lambert. Other members argued that in this political atmosphere, a party label is itself the problem.

They want independents who owe nothing to any party organization and who focus on families, affordability, jobs and accountability.

To them, Ross’s housing, wage and transparency agenda speaks directly to working families squeezed by rising costs. They see his independence as the cleanest break from the status quo.

What the split tells us. The board could not reach a majority, so it is not endorsing in this race.

That split is itself the story. 

A year ago, the fault line in Otero County politics ran between Republicans and Democrats.

In 2026 it runs between voters and institutions. Emery's 45-vote primary win showed that Republican voters were willing to fire their own party's chair.

Ross’s candidacy asks whether voters are ready to go further and fire the parties themselves.

That is the real choice on Tuesday's ballot

A vote for Emery says the system can be fixed by putting principled, experienced people inside it, and he has already proven he will cross his own party to do it.

A vote for Lambert says the system needs to be rebuilt, with more seats at the table and more power handed back to neighborhoods.

Both men are betting that District 2 is fed up.

The only question is whether voters want a better steward or a different design.

Whoever wins, the message from Otero County this year is already clear: no seat is safe, no party is owed loyalty, and every officeholder now answers to voters who have shown they will act.

District 2 voters should weigh which kind of change they want, and vote on Tuesday, November 3.

This editorial was approved  by the New Mexico Conservative News editorial advisory board, whose members include two Republicans, two Democrats, one Libertarian, and one member who declined to state a party.

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