Greg Cunningham enters race for Congress in CD2, covering southern NM and ABQ’s Westside

A Republican former two-time New Mexico legislative candidate will seek his party’s nomination to challenge U.S. Rep. Gabe Vasquez (D-NM-02) in next year’s midterm election. 

New Mexico Political Report first reported in September that Greg Cunningham, a 59-year-old Marine Corps veteran and former Albuquerque Police detective, was preparing to enter the race. He made it official this week by filing a statement of candidacy with the Federal Election Commission to run for the Republican nomination to take on Vasquez in next year’s midterm election. Cunningham signaled the public start of his campaign on Wednesday in a press release made available to New Mexico Political Report. 

“Our state has been blessed with so much – but our politicians have let us down and kept us from fulfilling our potential. I know that common-sense conservative solutions can get us back on track: starting with locking up violent criminals, easing the burdens on our small businesses, holding our education system accountable, and helping more New Mexicans provide for their families with good-paying jobs,” Cunningham stated in the press release.

Cunningham, who made two unsuccessful campaigns against state Rep. Joy Garratt (D-Albuquerque), is the second Republican to jump into the race. Eddy Aragon, a former candidate for Albuquerque mayor and a radio station owner and talk show host, is the only other candidate in the race for the nomination. The winner will face Vasquez in the general election in November 2026.

Last month, Vasquez kicked off his own campaign for a third term in a highly competitive 2nd Congressional District, which reaches from Albuquerque’s Westside down into the border towns and oil patch communities of southern New Mexico. The Cook Political Report, a nonpartisan campaign and election observer, has declared the 2nd Congressional District as one of a handful of tossup contests that could determine which party controls a narrowly divided U.S. House of Representatives in 2027. 

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