Senate District 33 stretches across parts of Otero, Lincoln and Chaves counties, including parts of Alamogordo, Ruidoso and the ranch country of Lincoln County. On Nov. 3, voters there will elect a state senator for the first time since Sen. Nicholas Paul resigned for health reasons in October 2025. Not every Alamogordo address falls in this district, so check your sample ballot.

Both candidates are serious, decent people with strong ties to this region. That makes this a harder call than most. 

After weighing their records and their reasons for running, we endorse Liam Griffin.

The incumbent

Sen. Rex Wilson, a Republican rancher from Ancho, was not elected to this seat. Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham appointed him in January 2026 from a list of nominees submitted by county commissions. Chaves County nominated him unanimously. He took office days before the session began.

His background is substantial:

Local government: He served as a Lincoln County commissioner from 1997 to 2003.

Health care: He spent 18 years as a health care administrator, including as southern region director for Presbyterian Medical Services, overseeing programs across Chaves, Lincoln and Otero counties.

Ranching: The New Mexico Cattle Growers Association named him 2017 Cattleman of the Year.

 Youth: He founded Camp Sierra Blanca at Fort Stanton, an alternative education program for at-risk young people.

Fairness requires saying plainly that his short time in Santa Fe has been productive. His Medicare supplement open enrollment bill, Senate Bill 21, passed the Senate 36-0 and was signed into law in March. That is more than some legislators manage in a full term and as a novice legislator out performs state Rep John Block in effectiveness as a Republican.

Before his appointment, he described the seat as one meant “to support local government, not the other way around.”

We have no quarrel with Rex Wilson’s character or his competence.

Our endorsement rests on something else: what this district needs most right now, and who has proven he will deliver it.

The challenger

Liam Griffin, listed in state election records as William Griffin, was born in Albuquerque and raised in a modest family with four siblings. He built a career in telecommunications in the United States and Europe, then went to law school after watching the legal system used against a member of his own family. He came home to New Mexico in 2010 and has practiced law since. Today he practices in Ruidoso, often for clients who cannot afford a lawyer at market rates.

When the floods hit Ruidoso, Griffin did not wait for an office to act. He took on legal work for people affected by the floods, much of it without pay. In 2024 the 12th Judicial District Pro Bono Committee named him Pro Bono Attorney of the Year for that work.

That is the heart of our endorsement. Long before he asked for a single vote, Griffin spent his own time helping his neighbors through one of the worst disasters this region has faced in years. The burn scar and flood recovery in Lincoln County will be a central job for whoever holds this seat. Griffin knows it from the inside, one case at a time.

What he is running on

Griffin calls himself “a pragmatist, not a partisan,” and his campaign centers on the kitchen-table problems voters across this district raise:

Affordability: Working families struggling to cover food, housing and health care.

Health care access: Parents who should not have to choose between a doctor’s visit and groceries, in a region short on providers.

Jobs and education: Opportunity close to home, so young people who grow up here can build a life here.

Government that listens: Representation for voters who feel unheard by Santa Fe.

Griffin is a Democrat, and many of our readers will pause at that. We understand. But this seat should belong to someone who answers to Alamogordo, Ruidoso and the ranch communities of this district, not to a caucus

Griffin’s pro bono work did not ask about anyone’s party. He has spent years helping whoever walked through his office door in trouble.

A lawyer who holds government accountable

A senator’s job is to write laws and to hold state government to them. Griffin brings training for both. He holds a law degree and has practiced law in New Mexico for 16 years, reading statutes, arguing them in court and seeing where they fail ordinary people. That is direct preparation for drafting legislation that works the first time.

He has also been willing to take on government itself when it fell short of the openness the law requires as he did in Ruidoso previously in a first amendment case.

A senator who has gone to court for public transparency will not need to be persuaded that voters deserve to see how decisions are made in Santa Fe.

In our board’s experience, he is personable and approachable, he listens before he argues, and he looks for the deal that solves the problem rather than the fight that makes the headline. In a Legislature where results depend on relationships across the aisle, that temperament is an asset to the whole district.

The fair objection

Wilson’s supporters will say he has already passed a law, brings decades of public and health care leadership, and fits a district that has elected Republicans. All true. They will add that Griffin’s campaign website lays out priorities rather than detailed bills. That is a fair criticism, and we urge him to fix it if elected by putting his plans in writing early and often.

But Wilson holds this seat by appointment, not by election. On Nov. 3, voters decide for themselves who represents them for the first time since the seat came open. We believe the candidate who has already done the hard, unpaid work of rebuilding lives in this district has earned the chance to do it in the Senate.

Our endorsement

Senate District 33 needs a senator who knows what recovery looks like on the ground and who will fight for affordable health care and opportunity at home

Liam Griffin has shown us who he is when no one was watching. That is the kind of leader we want in Santa Fe.

Vote today last day of early voting! And, Election Day is Tuesday, Nov. 3. Make a plan and vote.

This editorial was approved unanimously by the New Mexico Conservative News editorial advisory board, whose members include two Republicans, two Democrats, one Libertarian, and one member who declined to state a party.

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