New Mexico · U.S. Senate
NM Class 2 Senate seat
Coverage: this seat is included in the 2026 national listing.
Candidate source
Candidate source: New Mexico Secretary of State (Candidate Portal, SERVIS) — 2026 General Election Contest/Candidate List (retrieved 2026-09-28). Absence of a candidate row is never evidence that a race has no candidates.
How the candidate list was checked
Rows read from the official source: 524 · published here: 10 · left out by rule: 514 · held back for review: 0. Official 2026 General Election Contest/Candidate List (Telerik grid, 524 data rows, all offices; cty=99 = statewide). Federal rows: US Senator x4 (Lujan DEM and Marker REP 'Qualified'; OCONNELL DTS and PERLS FWD marked 'Disqualified' by the state -> status disqualified) + US Representative districts 01/02/03, 2 each, all 'Qualified'. Status verbatim from the grid's Status column; party codes expanded with original retained. Senate contest = Class I (Lujan). Excluded rows are state/county offices. Senate rows carry senate_class=2 designation=regular: NM is in the official Senate Class II registry (the state's only scheduled 2026 Senate race), so the seat identity is derived from the registry, not defaulted.
Boundaries and sources
County–district classifications come from official block-assignment files, cross-checked against Census representations; render geometry is display-only.
Current officeholder
The current officeholder has not been confirmed in this edition. This does not establish that the seat is vacant.
Upcoming contests
2026-11-03 — general
BEN R LUJAN · Democratic (DEM)
Qualified for the general-election ballot
BOB PERLS · Forward (FWD)
Disqualified
LARRY E MARKER · Republican (REP)
Qualified for the general-election ballot
MIRA OCONNELL · No Party/Declined To State (DTS)
Disqualified
Polling
Ben Ray Luján (Democrat) against Larry Marker (Republican). Too few polls in the last 30 days for an average: we need at least 3 polls from 2 pollsters.
A poll average describes what recent surveys found. Each poll has its own sampling error, larger for smaller samples. The average is not a forecast and not a probability. Matchup: certified candidate list. 0 polls in the source were left out: party-sponsored or internal polls, other matchups, duplicate versions of the same poll, or polls missing who was surveyed.
All 2 polls
| Pollster | Fieldwork | Sample | Ben Ray Luján | Larry Marker | Margin |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SurveyUSA for KOB-TV (Albuquerque) | September 25, 2026 – September 30, 2026 | 576 likely voters | 54% | 36% | D+18.0 |
| Research & Polling Inc. for Albuquerque Journal | August 21, 2026 – August 28, 2026 | 516 likely voters | 53% | 38% | D+15.0 |
PrivateVoteHub Polls from the VoteHub Polling API, retrieved October 7, 2026, used under CC BY 4.0. How polls are chosen
Economic profile of the state this seat represents
FederalCensus Bureau American Community Survey 2020-2024 (5-year) · survey period 2020-2024 · State of New Mexico
- Median household income$64,059± $808
- Poverty rate17.8%± 0.4 ppPopulation for whom poverty status is determined
- Rent burden (30%+ of income on gross rent)50.2%± 1.1 ppRenter-occupied households paying cash rent for which rent burden is computed
- Homeownership rate70.0%± 0.4 ppOccupied housing units
- Bachelor's degree or higher (age 25+)31.0%± 0.4 ppPopulation 25 years and over
Technical definitions (ACS tables)
- Rent burden (30%+ of income on gross rent)
- Renter-occupied households paying cash rent for which rent burden is computed: B25070_001 minus B25070_011 (Not computed)
This seat's geography is exactly coterminous with its state (or the District), so the state estimates from the same edition apply directly.
Structural five-year survey conditions — not current monthly conditions. Uncertainties are 90% margins of error: the published ACS margin for median income; Census-formula approximations (ACS handbook ch. 8) for the rates. “Margin unavailable” means the source supplies no usable margin — never zero.
Campaign finances
2025-2026 two-year period (FEC cycle 2026). Committee totals are the FEC’s own candidate-level aggregation — never summed from committee rows here. Independent spending is reported separately and is never part of a candidate’s receipts. An FEC registration is not proof of ballot qualification; candidacy status comes verbatim from the accepted release.
General election · November 3, 2026
“No matching FEC candidate record” means no filing was located — it is never evidence that a candidacy does not exist, and never a ballot-status claim. Candidates’ coverage dates can differ; each row carries its own.
Current officeholder — Congress.gov context
Congress.gov member context: not available for this seat’s current officeholder (no_representative_record). The officeholder record above is unchanged.
Counties and this district
County boundaries for this seat are not published in this release. Explore individual counties on the county map.