# Larry Marker **Larry E. Marker** is the 2026 Republican nominee for U.S. Senate in New Mexico against [[Ben Ray Luján]] — a nomination he won as a **write-in** after the party's only filed candidate, Christopher Vanden Heuvel, was disqualified on February 10, 2026 for insufficient valid petition signatures. A Roswell building contractor and former oil-and-gas operator with a farming, ranching and manufacturing background, he has never held elected office; he finished third in a 2024 Republican state Senate primary and ran a write-in campaign for state land commissioner in 2022 (3,950 votes). He cleared the 2,351-vote write-in threshold on June 2 with roughly 4,500 votes (4,470 per the Roswell Daily Record; 4,579 per Ballotpedia). Without him, New Mexico would have held its first Senate general election since 1914 without both major parties on the ballot. The August Journal Poll had Luján 53–38; Marker had raised $33,525 through June 30. See [[NM-Sen-2026]].