This article was originally published by Source New Mexico on May 18, 2026. It is republished here under a CC BY-ND 4.0 license. Any views expressed are the author’s alone and do not necessarily reflect those of Independent Political Report or the Outsider Media Foundation. Links are included as they are in the original article. Header image added by Independent Political Report.
The newly formed Forward New Mexico Party has achieved minor party status and its candidates can appear on the Nov. 3 general election ballot, party officials announced Monday.
Forward Party co-founder and former presidential candidate Andrew Yang visited the Roundhouse in Santa Fe in April to announce that the New Mexico Forward Party was seeking designation as an official minor party and hoped to field candidates against elected officials who are running unopposed in the June 2 primary.
The party is already fielding candidates in several state races. In a Monday announcement, party officials said several contenders have declared their intentions to run with the Forward Party, including New Mexico Forward Party Chair Bob Perls for the U.S. Senate seat held by Sen. Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.); Michael Vigil for the Office of the State Auditor; Dennis Dinge for Public Education Commission District 3; Curtis Clough for Public Education Commission District 6; and Karin Hendrickson for the state House District 43 seat held by state Rep. Christine Chandler (D-Los Alamos).
Party officials said the New Mexico Secretary of State’s Office granted them minor party status late on Friday afternoon. One-half of one percent of the total votes cast in the 2022 election — just more than 3,561 people — must give their signatures for a political party to achieve minor party status, according to the secretary of state. Residents interested in running for office as an independent or with a minor party have until June 25 to declare their candidacies.
“With this final step, Forward is officially a political party and New Mexicans now have a real choice when casting their ballots in November,” Perls said in a statement.
Yang co-founded the party in 2022 with former Republican New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman, who previously led President George W. Bush’s Environmental Protection Agency. The Forward Party’s tenets include treating “everyone with dignity and respect.”
The party has gained steam elsewhere — Yang previously told Source NM that the party has fielded more than two dozen candidates in Utah, including one incumbent.
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