Five GOP dreamers are hoping to fill the Republican nominations for the 2022 race against incumbent Michelle Lujan Grisham as the governor of New Mexico.
While all five of the candidates are relatively unheard of, Jay Block seems to be the most well-known, according to the Santa Fe New Mexican.
"Thank you for the great support so far," Block wrote in a July 11 tweet. "We have some solid candidates running for office up and down the ballot. Please get out there and support them. Knock doors, make calls, donate money, or even run for office!!! Lots of opportunities to affect change."
Block is serving his second term as a Sandoval County commissioner representing Corrales and southeastern Rio Rancho, and has worked over 20 years as a nuclear weapons consultant, the Santa Fe New Mexican reported.
“I’m the first Republican to win that seat,” Block told the Santa Fe New Mexican. “I have appealed to folks who are not Republican by being elected twice as a conservative in a Democratic district."
The other GOP candidates are Mark Ronchetti, Karen Bedonie, Rebecca Dow, Tim Walsh and Greg Zanetti.
At the age of 63 and an investment adviser, Zanetti is a two-term chairman of the Bernalillo County GOP. Growing up in Albuquerque, the Boston University graduate attended the U.S. Military academy and served in the Army National Guard.
“I have an awful lot of experience with sprawling bureaucracies,” Zanetti said, according to the Santa Fe New Mexican. “No other candidate can say that.”
Dow, 48, is serving her third term in the state House of Representatives. Her experience includes the business sector, and she works as a consultant to for-profit and community-based early childhood providers
“I think I’m uniquely qualified at this time to respond to the needs of the everyday New Mexican, what’s happened with their businesses, with their children’s education and how to help them reach their hopes and dreams,” Dow said. “I’ve done it in my local community. I’ve been working to do that in my district, and we can bring it to a statewide level.”
Walsh, 74, was employed as an education adviser to former governor Gary Johnson. The retired teacher says his experience working for the former administration taught him “systems of government and how it works and how it doesn’t work” and how “some elitists and special interests get way too much privilege.”