The daughter of New Mexico’s longest serving U.S. Senator entered the race for the Republican nomination to likely face an incumbent Democrat.
Nella Domenici filed the papers with the FEC, and this comes just days after a former Bernalillo County Sheriff, and former Democrat, announced his candidacy for the seat currently held by Sen. Martin Heinrich.
“I am uniquely prepared and ready to fight for a dramatically improved New Mexican economy. My professional experience and education enables me to deeply understand inflation, taxation, setting and managing huge budgets and creating incentives and benefits that serve employees, and attract new businesses and entrepreneurs,” Domenici said in a statement Wednesday.
According to Politico, she has the backing of the National Republican Senatorial Campaign, the national campaign arm that seeks to elect Republicans to the U.S. Senate.
In a statement Wednesday, NRSC chair Steve Daines, R-Montana, praised Domenici.
“I’m pleased Nella Domenici is running for Senate in New Mexico,” Daines said. “Nella’s experience at the highest levels of business, commitment to securing our border, and passion for improving education make her a strong candidate to flip this seat.”
While the Domenici name is familiar to many New Mexicans—her father Pete Domenici served six terms in the Senate representing New Mexico—the younger Domenici herself may not be familiar.
She is a former chief financial officer of Bridgewater Associates, an asset management firm that runs hedge funds. Before this, she attended elite East Coast schools, receiving a J.D. from the Georgetown University Law Center and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.
Domenici joined the AI company Dataminr as its CFO in 2020 which touted her time as CFO of “the world’s largest hedge fund” in Bridgewater Associates. She left the position due to health reasons one year later.
She then joined the board of Cognizant in 2023.
Her campaign site said that she and her husband kept a house in New Mexico for twenty years.
The Democratic Party of New Mexico greeted the news of Domenici joining the race with a scathing statement.
“If Nella Domenici survives the dogfight, her close ties to Wall Street and her work for a mega-hedge fund that laid off American workers while investing in China will all face extensive scrutiny as Republicans’ primary intensifies,” Democratic Party of New Mexico chair Jessica Velasquez said. “Democrats have won every Senate race in New Mexico since 2006, and we are confident Senator Heinrich will be reelected.”
Democrats are considered a heavy favorite to maintain the Senate seat that has been in Democratic hands since 1983.
Heinrich easily won a three-way race in his 2018 reelection bid.
Domenici’s father was the last Republican to win a U.S. Senate seat in New Mexico, when he was reelected to a sixth term in 2002. He retired due to health problems instead of running for a seventh term in 2008, and Democrat Tom Udall won the open seat race.
While the Domenici name is a big one in New Mexico politics history, it isn’t a surefire path to victory in the state. Her brother, Pete Domenici Jr., finished a distant fourth in the 2010 Republican primary for governor, behind eventual two-term governor Susana Martinez.
Her sister, Helen, ran for a state legislative seat in Maryland as a Republican, but lost in the general election.
