New Mexico · Senate
election 2026-11-03 · forecast as of 2026-10-01 · margins and probabilities are for Ben Ray Luján
Who is running?
Ben Ray Luján (Democratic), Larry Marker (Republican). The margin below is Ben Ray Luján minus the other candidate in the main contest; the rest are on the ballot and not in it.
The race, in brief
Democratic incumbent Ben Ray Luján is seeking a second term in New Mexico. He was elected in 2020 after representing the 3rd congressional district from 2009 to 2021. The text says Republicans have not won a Senate election in the state since 2002 and gives no presidential results. The state profile is on file in the facts.
Luján won the June 2 Democratic primary against Matt Dodson, a U.S. Air Force veteran, with 84.2% (182,360 votes) in the results table; the lead gives 83.7%. No Republican made the primary ballot: Christopher Heuvel, the only one to file, was disqualified, and former oil and gas operator Larry Marker was nominated as a write-in, taking 31,220 votes unopposed. As of June 30, 2026 Luján had raised $8,277,478 with $4,396,754 on hand; Marker had raised $33,525 with $11,850 on hand.
All ten raters listed, including The Cook Political Report (September 23, 2026) and Sabato's Crystal Ball (September 22, 2026), put the race at D. The one general-election poll in the text, Research & Polling Inc. (August 21–28, 2026), has Luján 53%, Marker 38%.
A paragraph quoting a model forecast from the day this brief was written is omitted; the current forecast is at the top of this page.
The facts, each beside its sentence
Democratic incumbent Ben Ray Luján is seeking a second term.
Democratic incumbent Ben Ray Luján is seeking a second term.
Ben Ray Luján, incumbent U.S. senator (2021–present)
After no Republicans qualified for the primary ballot, Marker was nominated as a write-in candidate.
Ben Ray Luján, a member of the Luján political family, was elected in 2020 after serving as the representative for the 3rd congressional district from 2009 until 2021.
He is being challenged by Republican former oil and gas operator Larry Marker.
Republicans have not won a Senate election in New Mexico since 2002.
candidate: Ben Ray Luján (incumbent) votes: 182,360 percentage: 84.2
The Cook Political Report D September 23, 2026
|Larry Marker (R) $33,525 $21,675 $11,850
Research & Polling Inc. August 21–28, 2026 516 (LV)
Christopher Heuvel, the only Republican to file for the race, was disqualified for failing to meet the requirements to appear on the ballot.
Luján has been an outspoken critic of Donald Trump, having voted in line with Trump's stated position only 5% of the time.
Not in the source: The facts carry no forecast basis.; No presidential or previous Senate results are given as numbers.; facts.candidates marks Luján as incumbent: false, although the text names him the incumbent.; The Democratic primary share differs between the lead (83.7%) and the results table (84.2%).; Ratings are given only as 'D' with no Lean/Likely/Safe.
Read from the district's section of Wikipedia's state page (CC BY-SA), archived as 3e6b34d999f5; written by claude-fable-5-1 (batch reader) on 2026-09-30 and checked mechanically: every quote occurs verbatim in the archived text, every number in the brief occurs in the inputs. No probability here is the reader's.
Who holds the seat now
Martin Heinrich (Democrat), in this chamber since 2013, 3 terms, class 1 (term ends 2031). Committees: Senate Committee on Appropriations; Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources (Ranking Member); Joint Economic Committee; Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.
Ben Ray Luján (Democrat), in this chamber since 2021, 1 term, class 2 (term ends 2027). Committees: Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry; Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation; Senate Committee on Finance; Senate Committee on Indian Affairs; Senate Committee on the Budget; United States Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control.
From the congress-legislators dataset (CC0), archived as ae8cb9477c48. For a Senate race this lists both of the state's senators; the one whose term ends in the election year holds the seat on the ballot. For a House district redrawn for 2026 it is the member elected under the old lines with this number, who may be running elsewhere; the dossier above names who is running here.
The money
| Candidate | Raised | Cash on hand | PAC share | Self-funded | Outside $ for | Outside $ against |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lujan, Ben Ray (DEM) incumbent | $5,626,629 | $4,396,754 | 31% | 0% | $319 | $0 |
| Marker, Larry E (REP) challenger | $33,525 | $11,850 | 0% | 0% | $0 | $0 |
| Dodson, Matt (DEM) challenger · not on our roster | $32,743 | $183 | 0% | 34% | $0 | $0 |
FEC bulk candidate summaries through June 30, 2026; $319 of independent expenditures for or against these candidates this cycle (FEC Schedule E, types 24E and 24A), which is the parties' and outside groups' own revealed view of whether this seat is in play.
How it has voted for president
| Two-party margin | 2016 | 2020 | 2024 |
|---|---|---|---|
| President | D+9.3 | D+11.0 | D+6.1 |
A shift of 3.2 points toward the Republicans from 2016 to 2024. county returns summed; MEDSL county file (2016), an MIT-licensed county file (2020, checked against certified state results) and MEDSL precinct returns (2024). For a district split across counties this is an estimate, and where the state published the exact 2024 figure for these lines, that exact figure is the one the model uses.
The state in numbers
| Measure | State | Average state | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bachelor's degree or higher, 25+, 2023 | 30.2% | 34.0% | -3.8 pts |
| White, non-Hispanic, 2023 | 36.5% | 66.3% | -29.7 pts |
| Black, non-Hispanic, 2023 | 1.8% | 10.1% | -8.3 pts |
| Hispanic or Latino, 2023 | 48.1% | 12.9% | +35.3 pts |
| Asian, non-Hispanic, 2023 | 1.6% | 4.4% | -2.8 pts |
| Foreign-born, 2023 | 9.2% | 9.6% | -0.4 pts |
| Median age, 2023 | 39.2 | 39.1 | +0.12 |
| Median household income, 2023 | $62,125 | $77,633 | $-15,508 |
| Median home value, 2023 | $232,200 | $314,132 | $-81,932 |
| Owner-occupied homes, 2023 | 69.3% | 67.4% | +2.0 pts |
| Unemployment (ACS), 2023 | 6.0% | 4.8% | +1.2 pts |
| Federal government workers, 2023 | 6.9% | 3.0% | +3.8 pts |
| Work from home, 2023 | 11.0% | 12.3% | -1.3 pts |
| Households on SNAP, 2023 | 18.7% | 11.1% | +7.6 pts |
| Households with Social Security income, 2023 | 35.8% | 32.1% | +3.6 pts |
| Households with public assistance income, 2023 | 3.6% | 2.6% | +1.0 pts |
| Moved in from another state, past year, 2023 | 3.1% | 2.9% | +0.3 pts |
| Gini index, 2023 | 0.48 | 0.47 | +0.01 |
| Unemployment, latest month (BLS), 2026-07 | 5.6% | 4.0% | +1.6 pts |
| Change in unemployment, past 12 months, 2026-07 | +0.6 pts | -0.1 pts | +0.7 pts |
| Change since the last election (24 months), 2026-07 | +0.2 pts | -0.1 pts | +0.3 pts |
| Per-capita personal income (BEA), 2024 | $58,249 | $70,662 | $-12,413 |
| Per-capita income growth since 2019, nominal, 2024 | 34.8% | 32.4% | +2.4 pts |
| Government and other transfers, share of income, 2024 | 25.3% | 19.4% | +5.9 pts |
| Social Security, share of income, 2022 | 7.2% | 6.1% | +1.1 pts |
| Medicare, share of income, 2022 | 4.7% | 4.4% | +0.4 pts |
| Medicaid, share of income, 2022 | 7.5% | 3.8% | +3.8 pts |
| SNAP, share of income, 2022 | 1.5% | 0.6% | +0.9 pts |
| Earned Income Tax Credit, share of income, 2022 | 0.5% | 0.3% | +0.2 pts |
| Veterans' benefits, share of income, 2022 | 1.3% | 0.9% | +0.4 pts |
| Federal civilian jobs, share of all jobs, 2022 | 2.6% | 1.5% | +1.1 pts |
| Military jobs, share of all jobs, 2022 | 1.6% | 1.2% | +0.5 pts |
ACS 5-year state tables; BLS county unemployment and BEA county income, transfers and jobs summed to the state. Every figure is a named column of a named public-domain table, archived before it was read.
Who is ahead, and by how much?
Two numbers because they answer two questions. The nowcast is where opinion stands; the election-day forecast is where it is likely to end up.
How likely is each to win?
Monte Carlo error is ±0.2 points. A change smaller than that is simulation noise rather than news, and this page will not describe it as movement.
How wide is the range?
Nowcast: 90% of simulations fall between -5.0 and +29.0 points. Election day: -2.3 to +34.2. The election-day interval is 2.5 points wider, which is the 33 days of movement still to come.
What is the uncertainty made of?
Total sd 11.16 points, made of latent opinion 62%, race-specific polling error 20%, drift to election day 13%, correlated polling error 5%. The decomposition is stored with the forecast rather than reconstructed, so a probability whose dominant input is a placeholder is visibly that.
What evidence is this built on?
1 polls, most recent 2026-08-28. 100% verified against a primary source.
What changed since the last run?
Shaded band is the 90% interval, line is the central estimate, positive is Ben Ray Luján ahead of Larry Marker. Over 15 stored forecasts the central estimate moved +1.8 points. There were 6 specification changes (marked on the axis) and no new polls arrived over this window — so every movement in this chart is a change to the model, not a change in the race.
Since 2026-10-01: margin +0.00 points, win probability +0.0 points, on +0 polls.
Not answered here: why it changed. Splitting a move into new polls, time and specification means re-running the earlier model against the later inputs -- two extra posterior fits -- so it is computed on a cadence (scripts/attribute_forecasts.py) rather than while you wait. This pair of runs has not been decomposed yet. The size of the move is shown; the cause is not guessed at.
How has this model done before?
Measured on 230 forecasts across 230 races in cycles 2016,2018,2020,2022,2024: mean absolute error 4.56 points, Brier score 0.0543. The nominal 90% interval contained the result 94% of the time, the 80% interval 84%, and the 50% interval 47%. Read that with care: a national polling miss moves every race in a cycle at once, so the sample size for a question about the intervals is 5 cycle(s), not 230 forecasts. Per cycle -- bias +1.644 pts; 2016: n=43 bias=+4.68 cov90=0.860; 2018: n=63 bias=-0.52 cov90=1.000; 2020: n=35 bias=+5.44 cov90=0.886; 2022: n=54 bias=-0.60 cov90=0.944; 2024: n=35 bias=+1.48 cov90=1.000.
Where did every number come from?
Nowcast run 6def62ae-780b-4d96-9873-2ea25f47dd0d and election-day run ca0acbc3-53ef-4147-87bb-45ec66832367, model single_race_latent/0.8.1 at commit bdf7e83107c17a2399efe61a44ef1bbee48f9284, seeds 20260924 and 20260924.