Pearce stepping down as NM GOP chair

ROSWELL - Republican Party of New Mexico Chairman Steve Pearce will step down as the state party's leader this month, touching off a crowded race to succeed him.

Ash Soular, communications director for the party, confirmed in an email Nov. 26 that Pearce, a former congressman, will not be running for a fourth two-year term.

"Chairman Pearce is not seeking another term but will remain involved with the Party," Soular said. She was unable to provide a statement from Pearce before press time. 

The news comes ahead of the Republican Party of New Mexico 2024 Biennial Convention on Dec. 7 in Truth or Consequences. According to the party's uniform rules, every two years following a general election, the party's State Central Committee must hold officer elections and consider proposed party rule changes. 

Pearce, 77, of Hobbs, has a long history in party politics, as a state representative from 1997 to 2001, and a congressman who represented the New Mexico 2nd Congressional District from 2003 to 2009 and then again from 2011 until 2019.

He made an unsuccessful bid for the U.S. Senate in 2008 against then-U.S. Rep. Tom Udall and later for governor in 2018, which he lost to Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham.

Pearce was elected party chair in 2018 and reelected in 2020 and 2022.

The party website lists six candidates seeking the position of party chair: Amy Barela of Alamogordo, the party's first vice chair and an Otero County Commissioner; former Republican U.S Senate candidate Mick Rich of Albuquerque, Republican Party of Valencia County Chair John Brenna; Robert Kwasny, a U.S. Air Force veteran from Albuquerque and Mark Murton of Albuquerque, a retired U.S. Army officer and former manager at the Sandia National Laboratories.

Soular told the Roswell Daily Record in an email that a sixth candidate, state Sen. Joshua Sanchez, R-Bosque, had withdrawn from the race.