Bill Richardson, a New Mexico Democrat who served as governor from 2003 to 2011 after serving in the U.S. House and Clinton administration, died Friday at the age of 75. Richardson is largely remembered for his work negotiating the release of Americans detained overseas, a service that continued into this year when he helped free a Navy veteran who crossed from Poland into Russia. As is our wont at Daily Kos Elections, though, we'll be focusing on the Democrat's electoral career.
Richardson, who grew up in California and Massachusetts, moved to New Mexico in 1978, a decision the New York Times says he made because he believed the state's large Latino electorate would be open to backing a Mexican American politician like himself. But Richardson's start in local Democratic politics was turbulent, and he spent just six weeks as state party executive director before the post was eliminated in what the Sante Fe New Mexican calls "a party leadership shuffle." Richardson quickly found a new post as party executive director in Bernalillo County, which has long been the state's largest county, and he tried running for office himself in 1980 when he challenged GOP Rep. Manuel Lujan in the 1st District.
The six-term incumbent, who hailed from a prominent local political family, had won his last campaign with 63% of the vote, and he later acknowledged that he didn't see the Democrat as a threat. However, as Lujan told NPR in 2007, "He is a tireless worker—works early morning to late at night." Former Gov. Jerry Apodaca also recounted, "Anywhere you went there was Bill Richardson shaking hands." Lujan fended off Richardson just 51-49 even as, according to political analyst Kiernan Park-Egan, Ronald Reagan defeated President Jimmy Carter 52-39 in the 1st.
The Democrat didn't need to wait long for another shot to get to Congress, though, as the 1980 census gave the Land of Enchantment a third House district. Richardson in 1982 campaigned for the new and reliably Democratic 3rd, which included Santa Fe and other communities in the northern part of the state, but he wasn't the only one who coveted that seat. The field included Lt. Gov. Roberto Mondragón as well as Tom Udall, the son of former Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall, and Judge George Perez. (Richardson would later write in his memoir that then-Gov. Bruce King, who had a bad relationship with Mondragón, convinced Perez to run to harm his chances.)
All of Richardson's main rivals accused him of only moving to the state so he could run for Congress: One fringe contender who didn't make the ballot went far further and declared he was trying to "infiltrate" the United States to aid Mexico, which she called "a communist training camp." Both Mondragón and Udall also alleged that Richardson had tried to get them to drop out by telling them he'd run for the Senate in 1984 and back them as his successor, which he called "shameful disgusting lies." Richardson also struggled to explain how he'd been able to finance loans he made to his campaign, though the FEC would ultimately dismiss complaints against him after the primary.
Richardson would write in his memoir that he'd changed his approach late in the campaign by saying he'd gone from concentrating on appealing to Latino voters to "working the Anglo vote in cities like Farmington and Gallup." He'd also make winning over Native Americans a priority, writing, "I became a regular presence at Navajo chapter houses." Ultimately, he beat Mondragón 36-31, with Perez securing 19% and Udall earning the balance
Richardson easily won the general election and quickly became entrenched. He'd become close to President Bill Clinton during the late 1990s, and he attracted widespread attention in late 1996 when he helped secure the release of a trio of aid workers in the Sudan. Richardson soon left the House to become ambassador to the United Nations, a decision that had some bad but short-term consequences for Democrats at home. Republican Bill Redmond, whom Richardson had just beaten 67-31, won the 1997 special election 43-40 after Green Party candidate Carol Miller secured 17%; Udall, though, would unseat Redmond 53-43 the following year.
Richardson himself became Clinton's secretary of energy in 1998, and he was quickly talked about as a potential running mate for Al Gore. His prospects took a huge hit, though, after a turbulent tenure that included missing hard drives that contained nuclear secrets from Los Alamos National Laboratory. "I realized this incident, this Los Alamos incident, has probably reduced my chances to whatever is less than zero," he'd acknowledge, though his political career turned out to be far from over.
The Democrat instead ran for governor in 2002 to succeed termed-out Republican Gary Johnson, and he deterred any serious intra-party rivals from getting in. Richardson, who established a Guinness World Record during that campaign by shaking 13,392 hands over eight hours at the state fair (beating President Theodore Roosevelt's 8,513 milestone from 1907), spent the campaign as the frontrunner over Republican state Rep. John Sanchez in the first gubernatorial race between two Hispanic candidates in almost eight decades.
Things got nasty late in the campaign when Sanchez ran an ad linking the Democrat to a company under SEC investigation, a move that observers at the time attributed to his drop in the polls. Richardson hit back with his own ad, though, mocking his rival's career as a flight attendant, with the narrator declaring, "While Bill Richardson was cutting taxes for New Mexico, John Sanchez was serving orange juice at 30,000 feet." Richardson went on to score a 55-39 victory over Sanchez, who would later serve as lieutenant governor from 2011 to 2019.
Richardson easily claimed a second term in 2006 69-31, and he quickly began waging a presidential bid. But while Richardson would have made history as America's first Latino president, he was overshadowed by Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Democrats hoped that the popular governor would end his White House bid after Republican Sen. Pete Domenici announced his retirement in 2007, but Richardson stayed put; ultimately, his old foe Udall decisively flipped the Senate seat. Richardson's presidential bid ended after poor showings in Iowa and New Hampshire.
The victorious Obama later named Richardson to be his secretary of commerce, but he withdrew due to a grand jury investigation into how some of his donors won a prominent state contract. The probe ended without anyone being charged, but the matter took a toll on his once-formidable approval ratings and helped power Republican Susana Martinez's 2010 win over Richardson's lieutenant governor, Diane Denish. Richardson, who told the Washington Post in 2002 that in 10 years he saw himself "[s]moking cigars in Sante Fe and riding my horses," never held public office again, but he continued to work to free captured Americans around the world.