Ben Ray Lujan Wins Second Term in New Mexico Senate Race

Democrat Ben Ray Lujan won a second term in the U.S. Senate from New Mexico on Tuesday, November 3, 2026, defeating write-in Republican candidate Larry Marker. The Associated Press called the race for Lujan with 69 percent after approximately 11 percent of the votes were counted, the Las Cruces Sun-News reported in a live item timestamped 9:36 p.m. ET. CNN also called the race for Lujan shortly after polls closed at 7 p.m. in New Mexico, the Sun-News reported. The New York Post Senate winners tracker also listed Lujan, the incumbent, as the winner over Marker.

The count

The AP results feed marked the New Mexico Senate race Called for Lujan with 98,305 votes in a later snapshot. That feed put precincts reporting at 18.97 percent, 418 of 2,204, with an estimated 18.99 percent of the vote counted. The two snapshots tell the same story at different moments of the night. At the call, with about a tenth of the vote in, Lujan already held 69 percent against a write-in opponent, a margin that left the outcome in no doubt while most ballots were still uncounted. Counting continues, and the feed numbers will rise as more precincts report.

The winner's first words

Lujan thanked voters in a post on his X page quoted by the Sun-News. "Thank you, New Mexico. I am deeply grateful for the trust you have placed in me to continue serving in the U.S. Senate," Lujan wrote. "I will continue listening, showing up, and working with anyone ready to make life better for New Mexicans." The result returns him to Washington for a second term representing the state in the Senate.

A write-in challenge and a court fight

Marker, from Roswell, challenged the Democratic incumbent as a write-in candidate, the Sun-News reported. His campaign also reached a courtroom before election day. A lawsuit filed on October 30 in Chavez County by the Republican National Committee, the New Mexico Republican Party and Marker claimed that a voting guide published by the New Mexico League of Women Voters, which carried an erroneous photo next to information about Marker, misled voters. Fifth Judicial District Judge Jared Kallunki ruled that the guide could not be handed out at voting locations in New Mexico. The League told the Sun-News on November 2 that its online and digital guides had been corrected once the mistake was found, and it apologized for the error.

Election day in New Mexico

The Senate race sat at the top of a long state ballot. The Sun-News reported that 1,463,716 voters were eligible for the 2026 midterm election in New Mexico, and that 672,450 ballots had been cast as of 5 p.m. on election day. Of those, 327,787 were cast by Democrats, 218,459 by Republicans and 118,957 by voters who declined to state a party, according to the Secretary of State figures the Sun-News reported. In Dona Ana County, Clerk Amanda Lopez Askin said 41,719 voters had voted early as of November 2. Statewide voters also decided the District 2 seat in the U.S. House and state offices including governor, the Sun-News reported.