ALBUQUERQUE — From the start of her struggling Senate campaign, Nella Domenici has failed to convince New Mexicans that she understands their values. Over the past several months, Domenici has shown herself to be an out-of-touch, hypocritical candidate who has refused to take a clear stance on reproductive rights and ultimately sided with Donald Trump’s extreme Project 2025 agenda. Now, on the eve of Election Day, it’s worth taking a final look at Nella’s series of missteps that led her from “independent thinker” to full-blown MAGA enthusiast.
From the beginning, Domenici’s campaign has been an uphill battle to prove her “New Mexico” roots. Despite seemingly endless reminders of her father’s legacy as a long-serving Senator, the facts don’t lie: Nella Domenici, a multimillionaire former hedge fund executive, had not lived in New Mexico for 50 years. During her decades on the East Coast, she served as Chief Financial Officer at the world’s largest hedge fund, and sat on the board of directors for a company that specialized in outsourcing American jobs overseas. The reality only became clearer as the race went on—Domenici is deeply disconnected from New Mexico’s working families and has built her career prioritizing corporate profits over people.
On reproductive rights, Domenici’s stance has been slippery at best. While claiming she wouldn’t disrupt New Mexico’s existing protections, she openly aligned with the most extreme anti-choice Republicans. Throughout her campaign, she has repeatedly stated her support for the Supreme Court’s disastrous Dobbs decision, which overturned Roe v. Wade, and accepted financial support from anti-choice zealots like Sen. Steve Daines, R-MT. Desperate to control the narrative, Domenici even issued empty legal threats to silence opponents on this issue. Eventually, she let her true position slip, stating that efforts to codify abortion rights were “a sham,” and suggesting that the term “pro-choice” “has no meaning.” Her campaign has made it clear: if elected, Domenici would help Republicans secure the majority they need to implement a national abortion ban.
At the start of her campaign, Nella sought to distinguish herself as a “firebrand” on immigration and the fentanyl crisis. Yet, when a bipartisan immigration deal was on the table before Congress this spring, Domenici was silent. And when Donald Trump blocked the bill for campaign optics, Domenici stayed quiet, revealing her loyalty to party over principle.
While frequently invoking New Mexico’s fentanyl crisis as a campaign issue, Domenici’s record came under scrutiny.
Nella has frequently invoked New Mexico’s fentanyl crisis as a campaign issue. By the end of the summer, it had been revealed that companies she’d worked for had profited from the proliferation of this deadly drug through investments in Chinese fentanyl distribution. Domenici’s attempt to disown this responsibility during her debate with Senator Heinrich fell flat when her own resume showed she had claimed responsibility for “all aspects” of the business at her firm.
Despite her endless critiques of immigration policy, her repeated failures to act on immigration and her direct corporate ties to the fentanyl crisis expose her as an opportunist unable to reconcile her Wall Street past with the values she claims to support.
FROM MODERATE "INDEPENDENT THINKER" TO MAGA ENTHUSIAST AND TRUMP CHEERLEADER
Early in her campaign, Domenici positioned herself as a “moderate” and an “independent thinker.” She even claimed she would neither endorse nor seek an endorsement from Donald Trump. Over the next months, Domenici dodged and stonewalled questions about Trump.
She canceled an interview when she learned she would be questioned about Trump. When asked by a reporter if Trump had lost his previous election, Nella initially refused to answer. Later cornered, she finally admitted that the 2020 election was legitimate, but not before scolding the reporter for asking in the first place. In an interview with Dean Staley, she faced repeated questions about Trump, at one point chiding the interviewer for “absurd” questions and avoiding a clear response on Trump’s legitimacy as a candidate.
Finally, she surrendered to MAGA at the end of the first debate, admitting she’d be voting for Trump, and declaring, “I also agree with many of the policies of Donald Trump, and I will be voting for our nominee. The last four years under his leadership were much, much better than the recent four years.”
Since then, Domenici has gone all in, embracing Trump and his radical Project 2025 agenda. She warmed up the crowd for his appearance in Albuquerque, standing by as he railed against our democracy, promised sweeping deportations, announced plans to defund the Inflation Reduction Act that has brought clean energy jobs to New Mexico, pushed tax hikes on imports that would dramatically raise costs for working families, and pledged to install anti-vaccination conspiracy theorist Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. in a public health role.
“Nella Domenici started her campaign posing as a homegrown moderate,” Democratic Party of New Mexico Spokesperson Daniel Garcia said. “She has since revealed herself as a Wall Street opportunist who will stand with Trump and the MAGA agenda without hesitation. New Mexicans deserve leaders who fight for our families, our freedoms, and our future—and tomorrow, the voters of New Mexico will reject her once and for all.”
