Domenici's daughter declares candidacy for U.S. Senate seat held by Heinrich

Jan. 16—The surname Domenici likely will again appear on a New Mexico ballot later this year.

Nella Louise Domenici, the daughter of former U.S. Sen. Pete Domenici, has declared herself a candidate for the Senate seat held by Democrat Martin Heinrich.

Nella Domenici filed a statement of candidacy Tuesday with the Federal Election Commission declaring she'll run as a Republican, the party her father championed for several decades in New Mexico.

Her entrance into the race less than five months before the June 4 primary adds to a GOP race that had yet to garner much attention from would-be Republican candidates, though that may be changing. Ben Luna and former Bernalillo County Sheriff Manny Gonzales were the only entrants until Tuesday, when Domenici and John Thomas Roberts of Anthony filed candidacies.

The GOP primary winner will face off against Heinrich, a well-funded, two-term incumbent from Albuquerque.

Domenici, whose LinkedIn page says she is a senior financial and operations executive, board director and philanthropist, did not make herself available for questions Tuesday. A promised news release announcing her candidacy never materialized late Tuesday.

According to a bio on the LANL Foundation website, Domenici has spent much of her career in the business world on the East Coast while also serving on nonprofit boards for organizations that focus on education, health care and the arts. She has undergraduate and law degrees from Georgetown University. She was born in Albuquerque and moved to Washington, D.C., with her family after Pete Domenici was elected to a U.S. Senate seat in 1972.

Pete Domenici represented New Mexico in the Senate from 1973 through 2009 and for decades was an influential player in the Republican Party at both the state and national levels. A vocal proponent of New Mexico's national laboratories, for many years he served as chairman or ranking member of the powerful Senate Budget Committee. He died in 2017 at 85.

Domenici is the last Republican elected to the Senate from New Mexico, which has tilted increasingly Democratic in the past 15 years. Only once in his six campaigns did he fail to win less than 54% of the vote. His last successful campaign was in 2002. After he decided not to seek reelection in 2008, his seat was won by Tom Udall of Santa Fe.

Another member of the late senator's family, Pete Domenici Jr., ran for a statewide office in New Mexico in 2010. He was defeated in the Republican primary for governor by Susana Martinez in 2010.