Amanda López Askin has spent nearly nine years running elections in New Mexico's second most populous county, and now she wants to run them statewide. The Doña Ana County Clerk is the Democratic nominee for New Mexico Secretary of State, and she says her track record in Las Cruces — not political pedigree — is the reason voters should send her to Santa Fe.
López Askin began her ninth year as Doña Ana County Clerk this year and has administered 13 elections in the county since taking office, according to an interview with KRWG Public Media. She was sworn in just five days before early voting began on a high-profile 2018 election, a baptism by fire that she says shaped how she approaches the job. The station reports she went on to administer the state's first ranked-choice and consolidated election in 2019, then guided county voters through primary and general elections during the pandemic.
A County Clerk's Case for Statewide Office
López Askin's path to the nomination ran through a competitive primary. She defeated Santa Fe County Clerk Katharine Clark in the June 2 Democratic primary, taking 53.1% of the vote, according to Ballotpedia. In November, she faces Republican nominee Ramona L. Goolsby, who joined the Republican Party in 2025 and serves on the Ciudad Soil and Water Conservation District Board of Supervisors, per the same outlet's coverage of the race.
The seat is open because incumbent Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver was term-limited after two terms in office. Toulouse Oliver won the June Democratic primary for lieutenant governor before suspending that campaign later the same month due to health concerns, KUNM reported.
Betting on Southern New Mexico
Central to López Askin's pitch is geography. She told KRWG that 51 years have passed since a Democrat living in Las Cruces got on the ballot and won the office — the last being Jerry Apodaca in 1975. A win, she said, would represent leadership from southern New Mexico outside the Santa Fe-Albuquerque corridor, a region she argues has distinct needs and perspectives from the rest of the state.
That southern New Mexico identity is tied directly to her resume. The station's report notes the county's absentee ballot processing drew national scrutiny in 2018 during the tight race won by Democrat Xochitl Torres Small — the same election López Askin took over just days into her tenure, according to NMPolitics.net. She was first appointed to the clerk's post on September 11, 2018, in a 3-2 party-line vote by county commissioners filling a vacancy just 56 days before that year's general election, the outlet reported.
Campaign Finance Technology and Budget Fights
On policy, López Askin told KRWG that campaign finance reporting technology needs improvement and that she plans to review campaign finance reporting for transparency upgrades if elected. She said adequate staffing is necessary for a genuinely transparent reporting system, pointing to a budget problem she says has already hit the Secretary of State's office: the office has not received its full budget and has had to return and ask for more money, per the same account.
Her record in Doña Ana County offers a preview of how she might approach that fight. During her tenure as county clerk, she secured more than $3 million in capital outlay funding for a new election warehouse and expanded her department by six full-time positions to digitize county records and keep the office fully staffed, according to KVIA.
States' Rights and Federal Overreach
López Askin frames elections as a states' rights issue, telling KRWG that federal government overreach violates state control of elections and that executive orders from the Oval Office attempting to dictate election procedure are unconstitutional. She said she plans to support efforts to safeguard elections within state authority and would work with New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez on that front. She also said she plans to deny access to private voter information and oppose election interference.
She pointed to New Mexico's standing in national rankings as evidence the state is already doing things right, saying the state's election administration uses best practices and checks and balances. MIT ranked New Mexico among the top states in election administration, and López Askin said the state was ranked number one until recently; she believes it's currently ranked around eighth or ninth, per the KRWG interview. MIT's 2024 Elections Performance Index, released in April, showed New Mexico ranking seventh nationally for presidential election administration after topping the 2022 midterm index, according to Organ Mountain News. MIT's evaluation includes factors like voter registration, security, mail-in ballot access and polling locations. López Askin said she plans to fight to return New Mexico to the number one ranking.
Combating Misinformation, County by County
López Askin said New Mexico counties are diverse and have distinct needs and perspectives, a view she said informs her approach to voter outreach. She plans to discuss election procedures directly with voters and dispel both misinformation and what she calls malinformation — which she defined as specific information intended to dissuade people from participating in elections. She said New Mexico county clerks run good elections, a vote of confidence for the local officials she'd be working alongside as secretary of state.
She has spent 18 to 19 months on the campaign trail and says she has spoken with New Mexicans across the state during that stretch. Hoodline previously reported on López Askin's reappointment to the state's Voting System Certification Committee in December 2024. Voters will decide her bid for the state's top election post on November 3.
