New Mexico Democrat Gabe Vasquez keeps it low-key in a pivotal swing seat

WASHINGTON — Unlike some of his fellow Democrats in Congress, New Mexico Rep. Gabe Vasquez hasn’t tried to break through the tumultuous, Donald Trump-dominated news cycle with a pithy post or a video calibrated to go viral.

Instead, Vasquez, who represents a purple-tinged stretch covering the southern and western parts of the state, says he’s charting a different course, one that hews closely to the kitchen-table concerns of his working-class, majority-Latino district, which Trump carried in 2024.

“I’m not looking to actively get into conflict with Republicans or folks who voted for Trump,’’ the second-term congressman said in an interview. “I understand the economic anxiety that exists out there. I understand the anxiety around asylum seekers and the immigration process, which is completely broken. … I’m here to find solutions.”

In 2022, aided by Democratic-led redrawing of New Mexico’s congressional map, Vasquez flipped the 2nd District, defeating Republican incumbent Yvette Herrell by less than a percentage point. In 2024, he once again prevailed over Herrell, bucking national trends and boosting his margin of victory even as Trump narrowly carried the largely rural district — one of just 13 House battlegrounds represented by a Democrat but won by the president.

Vasquez’s district is key to both parties’ hopes of winning the House majority in 2026. The National Republican Congressional Committee is targeting the district as a pickup opportunity, while the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has tapped Vasquez for its Frontline program, which provides vulnerable incumbents with additional resources.

All politics is local

Democrats say Vasquez’s focus on economic issues could help the party win back Trump voters, particularly Latinos, who have moved to the right in recent years.

Homing in on local concerns is “at the core of what Democrats need to get back to doing,” Vasquez said, and “not getting caught up so much in the national politics and the issues of the day.”

While progressives seek fighters to do battle with Trump and moderates look for candidates who can appeal to a broader electorate, Vasquez has taken a more low-key approach, largely skipping the ideological battles dividing Democrats. He has occasionally deviated from the party’s orthodoxy, especially as it relates to the oil and gas industry, a key employer in the district.

“Like most Democrats in purple districts right now, he is being very careful and flying under the radar,” said Daniel Gomez, a political scientist at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces. “The strategy that Vasquez should take as a Democrat in a Trump district would be exactly what he’s doing: filtering out the national scandals and focusing on what he can do for (his) constituents.”

A CQ Roll Call analysis of his 2024 voting record found that on votes that split the parties, Vasquez stuck with House Democrats 87.2% of the time — only 11 party colleagues crossed the aisle more than he did. On House votes on which President Joe Biden took a position, Vasquez sided with him 91.7% of the time last year, or 66 out of 72 votes. Fifty-seven House Democrats did so more often.

In Congress, Vasquez is a member of the New Democrat Coalition, a center-left group and the party’s largest ideological bloc in the chamber. He also serves as the Congressional Hispanic Caucus’ vice chair for diversity and inclusion.

A working-class district

Vasquez’s 2nd District is a Pennsylvania-size swath of southern and western New Mexico. Largely rural, it includes Las Cruces and part of Albuquerque, as well as the oil- and gas-rich southeastern corner, near the Texas state line.

Vasquez has been an advocate for clean energy programs, but he has also supported the fossil fuel industry, a significant driver of the district’s economy.

“There’s not a lot of jobs you can have in New Mexico that pay six figures with a (commercial driver’s license), or as a steelworker, a pipe fitter or a welder,’’ Vasquez said. “Those jobs are very valuable to people, because they allow them to move into the middle class. They allow them to build savings in retirement. I’m not here to take any of that away. What I am here to do is to say, ‘How can we do this better? How can we do this cleaner?’”

And while Vasquez isn’t looking for social media stardom, he’s willing to use his platform to advocate on issues important to his constituents, such as pushing for reauthorization of a measure to pay the health care costs associated with radiation exposure linked to uranium mining and atomic bomb testing. And he spoke out against Texas Gov. Greg Abbott last year for erecting a razor wire fence along the border between the two states.

A true swing district, the 2nd has switched parties five times since 2008. The Democratic-controlled legislature redrew the district lines for the 2022 cycle, making it harder for Republicans to win. Biden would have carried the seat by 6 points in 2020, though district voters backed Trump by 2 points last fall, according to calculations by elections analyst Drew Savicki.

Vasquez, 40, is a first-generation Mexican American who grew up on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border. He says his approach is rooted in his working-class background.

“I’ll admit I was never on a trajectory … to be a member of Congress, and that’s one of the things I believe makes me resonate with my constituents,’’ said Vasquez, who prior to coming to Congress served on the Las Cruces City Council and as a staffer to Sen. Martin Heinrich. “I don’t come from a wealthy family. I don’t come from a political family. I come from a family that’s hardworking just like most of the people in my district.”

Vasquez recalls being 8 or 9 years old when his grandfather taught him the importance of conservation and how to safely handle a gun and hunt for food, “because that was actually the only way that he could feed his 10 kids.” He put himself through college by working in the chile fields, a grocery store and Home Depot and also sold vacuum cleaners door-to-door.

“One of the reasons I think I can connect, especially to Hispanic folks in rural communities in my district, is that I grew up with a .22 in my hand,’’ he said.

Vasquez called for stricter federal gun laws — including new measures mandating the safe storage of firearms — following last month’s mass shooting in a Las Cruces park in which three teenagers were killed and 15 people were wounded.

“What happened at Young Park, my old city council district, is a painful reminder that we face a deep systemic challenge,” he said in a statement issued in the aftermath of the tragedy.

Republicans have sought to portray Vasquez as a liberal whose views are out-of-step with the district.

“Gabe Vasquez does not represent the values of the constituents of CD2,’’ said Amy Barela, who leads the New Mexico Republican Party.

Barela said she expects the GOP will have “a couple of candidates” running to unseat Vasquez next year, though she expressed doubt that Herrell, who held the seat from 2021 to 2023, will be among them.

“The district is definitely flippable,’’ Barela said.

Vasquez and his supporters reject the GOP’s characterization of his record.

“They used misinformation to paint me as an extremist,” the congressman said. “I think so much of that was really … them wanting to discredit me as a Hispanic male. I didn’t learn English until I was in third grade, and I come from an immigrant family. But I would say that is the essence of the American spirit and the American dream.”

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(Ryan Kelly contributed to this report.)

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