Espinoza wins Mora sheriff seat; Sanchez cruises to take House District 40 seat
In the race for Mora County Sheriff, Democrat Amos J. Espinoza defeated Republican Manuel J. Martinez. Espinoza captured 1,302 votes, or 56 percent, to Martinez’s 1,005 votes, or about 44 percent.
“I’d like to thank my opponent for running a nice, clean race. He worked really hard at it,” Espinoza said. “And I’d like to thank the people from Mora County that had the trust in me to put me in this position.”
Espinoza said as sheriff he’d like to get a school resource officer for both Wagon Mound and Mora County.
“I also want to focus on the drug problem in our county as well,” Espinoza said. “Although I haven’t seen the budget yet, so I’m not sure what I’m going into.”
Espinoza said he also wants to strengthen the department and offer better pay to deputies.
“I want to get a stable department with some good deputies, and be able to pay them good so they can do a good job,” he said. “I’ve always said if you get paid good, you’re going to do a good job. So if I could get some good pay for my officers, I know they’ll do a good job … That way, we can serve the community better as well.”
Both San Miguel and Mora had several uncontested races on Tuesday as well.
Democrat Tomas Salazar won re-election to be State Representative for District 70.
Democratic judge Jennifer Attrep was re-elected to the New Mexico Court of Appeals. Floripa Gallegos won her bid for the Fourth Judicial District, Division 3. And Democrat Veronica Serna won her County Commissioner bid.
Democrat Joseph Sanchez won his bid to represent State District 40 in the New Mexico House Tuesday night, defeating independent Tweeti Blancett. According to data from the Secretary of State’s office, Sanchez secured 1,651 votes for nearly 84 percent of the overall vote. Blancett received 332 votes, for 17 percent.
“I’m grateful to the voters of District 40 for giving me their support and trusting me to be their voice in Santa Fe,” Sanchez said.
Once in office, Sanchez said he would focus on jobs and infrastructure.
“Our water systems are aging — we’re lacking water infrastructure,” he said.
“Obviously jobs are a huge thing, so we need to figure out how to grow economic development for District 40.”
But Sanchez said his key focus would be the opioid crises, an issue he campaigned on.
“Since the beginning, it’s been the heroin and opioid issue that’s been hurting the whole country, but mostly northern New Mexico,” Sanchez said.
Sanchez won the June Democratic primary by beating Paula Garcia and Barney Trujillo.
