Republican U.S. Congressional candidate Yvette Herrell, a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, is seen here at a campaign event with Kellyanne Conway, an adviser to President Donald Trump at the White House, on November 1, 2018. Photo: Yvette Herrell

National | Politics

Another Native woman -- a Republican -- launches bid for Congress

Wednesday, January 9, 2019

By Acee Agoyo

Two Native women are making history by serving in the U.S. House of Representatives. Could a third be on the way?

Yvette Herrell, a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, sure hopes so. She announced her campaign for New Mexico's 2nd Congressional District on Tuesday, barely five days after Rep. Sharice Davids and Rep. Deb Haaland, both Democrats, took their seats in the 116th Congress.

But Herrell, who ran for the same seat in the last election, is very different from those two trailblazers. She's a Republican running a state where voters elected Democrats to all federal and state-level positions in November.

She's also far less interested in talking about Indian Country than Davids, who experience in tribal economic development helped her secure victory in the 3rd Congressional District in Kansas, and Haaland, who been busy promoting the federal trust responsibility and focusing on pressing matters like missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls since taking the oath of office for New Mexico's 1st Congressional District.

Tonight @POTUS made a strong case for securing our border. We have a humanitarian & security crisis at the border, & it’s time for Democrats like Xochitl Torres Small to put partisanship aside & negotiate with the President & Senate to reopen the govt & secure our border. #nmpol
— Yvette Herrell (@Yvette4congress) January 9, 2019

Instead, Herrell's new announcement focused on most of the same topics she ran on during the 2018 cycle. The list includes the very controversial issue of border security, seemingly putting her at odds with New Mexico's elected leadership, who have opposed the call for a wall along the state's southern line.

"I'm running for Congress because I believe New Mexicans deserve a Representative who will grow our economy, safeguard our freedoms & way of life, & push to protect our borders," Herrell wrote in a post on Facebook.

These themes, which often echo those of President Donald Trump, did not resonate well enough with voters in the southern part of New Mexico. Despite the region's historically strong Republican base, Herrell, a former state lawmaker, lost the race to Rep. Xochitl Torres Small, a Democrat who did not previously hold elective office.

The outcome, however, was close. Torres Small defeated Herrell by just 3,722 votes, according to the official results, a sign of the GOP strength in the 1st District, home to several tribes.

But Herrell, who had contested the results until finally conceding on Monday, performed terribly when voter history is taken into account. Steve Pearce, a Republican who held the seat for five, non-consecutive terms before he ran for governor last year, defeated his Democratic opponent by 25 percentage points in 2016, according to the results.

😍 pic.twitter.com/knFBR7OVTb
— DPNM (@NMDEMS) November 30, 2018

Torres Small managed to reverse those gains in her very first campaign. She attracted high levels of support in the 2nd District, which boasts the second-most populous county and the second-most populous municipality in the state.

The landscape means Herrell has a lot of ground to recover in upcoming 2020 election cycle. That's why Republicans have been targeting Torres Small since the day she arrived in Washington, D.C., criticizing her every move, including her decision to support Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-California) as Speaker of the House.

“With her very first vote, Rep. Small broke her promise to New Mexicans who believed her when she campaigned on being an independent voice for Southern New Mexico,” said Pearce, who became chairman of the Republican Party of New Mexico after losing his race for governor.

He added: "Southern New Mexico deserves a Representative who puts them first instead of out of state political allies who don’t share our New Mexican values.”

Torres Small's first name means "Flower" in Nahuatl, an Indigenous language spoken in Mexico and Central America. She does not identify as Indigenous, though she has formed a close relationship with Haaland, who hails from the Pueblo of Laguna, and has aligned herself with fellow Democratic freshman like Davids, who is a citizen of the Ho-Chunk Nation.

Since being sworn in last Thursday, all three have focused on similar agendas. In addition to supporting Pelosi as Speaker, the highest position in the House, they have voted to reopen the federal government in order to restore critical funds to Indian Country programs.

Haaland and Torres Small also have called for increased services at the U.S. border with Mexico in light of the deaths of two Indigenous children, both from Guatemala. Jackeline Caal, who was seven years old, and Felipe Gómez, who was eight, were in the custody of U.S. Customs and Border Protection when they died. The agency is among those who have been pinched by the government shutdown.