KRWG Public Media's election 2026 coverage continues with conversations with incumbent Democratic U.S.

Senator Ben Ray Luján and Republican challenger Larry Marker.

Our goal is to cover the same general topic areas with each candidate, but allow for individual follow up questions related to the candidate's own unique platforms.

We'll limit answers to one minute so we can cover as many important issues as possible.

And we'll begin with incumbent Democratic U.S.

Senator Ben Ray Luján.

Thank you for being here.

Thanks for having me.

Why don't we begin with affordability From the price of gas to groceries, Americans are feeling the pinch.

Why do you believe this is happening?

And what can you do if reelected to bring some relief to New Mexicans?

Well, look, with gas now, unleaded pushing $5 a gallon, Diesel well over $6, family farms and ranchers are having a heck of a time, and most families just trying to hold on.

Food Is more expensive.

Electricity is more expensive.

Everything is getting more expensive.

A big cause of these high fuel costs is the war in Iran.

President Trump said it'd be six days.

We're now over 200 days.

Billions and billions of dollars that are being spent every day.

But yet there's nothing being done by my Republican colleagues in this president to lower costs for the American people.

There are some simple legislative policies that we can push, and then we can get adopted, and that I hope that this president will sign when Democrats are in the majority in the U.S.

House and in the U.S.

Senate, that will lower costs for American people.

Talk about how the U.S.

Senate can and should impact New Mexicans when it comes to trade policy.

President Trump's, tariffs right now, negative economic policy.

I've not met a small business owner in New Mexico that has seen the upside right now.

Tariffs can be used in a targeted fashion.

President Trump is issuing these tariffs to countries where he doesn't like when someone says something that offends him, and then he hits him with a 50% tariff.

President Trump contends that only the home countries pay for these tariffs, when in fact it's the American people paying more for everything from food to clothing to anything that the purchasing today.

There needs to be strong trade policy that supports the small businesses of New Mexico all across America.

One of the examples down in southern New Mexico is with a peak on growers.

There's more opportunity for them to get into markets, to be able to support what's happening on the ground and be able to share these incredible nuts with people all around the world.

But President Trump's negative tariffs are making it harder for local growers to be able to sell.

All right.

Thank you.

Do you feel Congress should have more say in military action around the world?

And if so, how can it reclaim its power to do so?

The United States Constitution is abundantly clear.

The power to go to war lays in the hands of the people's House, of the legislative branch not with the executive branch.

President Trump, when he went into Iran, he should have gone to the Congress to ask for support, just as George W. Bush did, once upon a time as well.

President Trump has neglected that responsibility.

And it's why I and my Senate colleagues have voted over 14 times now on a War Powers Act to say you need to end this war in Iran.

It's abundantly clear that the American people see this as an unpopular war and an illegal war.

President Trump is abusing his power.

This is another illegal war, and it needs to end.

Okay.

Thank you.

How should the US Senate support efforts to reform immigration policy?

We have a broken immigration system in the United States.

We need a program that's going to work for people.

One that's fair and one that's tough.

In addition to fixing a broken immigration system, we need strong border security.

We need to be investing in technology.

I was proud to work with the for former congresswoman from southern New Mexico by the name of Xochitl Torres Small, and we're able to pass legislation to require testing of 100% inbound and outbound screening.

There's now a pilot project down at Santa Teresa.

Those are the kind of investments that should be getting made to strengthen border security.

When President Trump is running political ads and taking $20 million from the accounts, it should be going to border security, he's neglecting that responsibility.

I really hope that when we start working on immigration policy, when there are votes to get this done, because my Republican colleagues have not been willing to work together to get this done, that we start with something called the Farm Worker Modernization Act.

This will provide more certainty to the workforce in the agriculture community, and we can start to build from there.

Okay, thank you.

What will be the impact in New Mexico of federal changes to Medicaid, and what is your policy position on access to Medicaid?

There was recent legislative action in Congress, and President Trump signed it.

It was a piece of legislation that the president refers to as the Big Beautiful Bill.

In this piece of legislation, Republicans eliminated every federal dollar with Medicaid.

Go back a few years in New Mexico when we had a former Republican governor of our state, Susana Martinez, from southern New Mexico.

She embraced Medicaid expansion when we passed the Affordable Care Act.

New Mexico was one of the highest uninsured states in the country.

And when Governor Martinez embraced Medicaid expansion, New Mexico became one of the lowest insured, uninsured states in the country, increasing those that had coverage.

What's happened now is with the elimination of every federal dollars of Medicaid, we're going to see the closure of rural health clinics across America.

States that embraced Medicaid expansion.

There's uncertainty for all of those constituents in New Mexico.

Well over 50% of our constituents depend on this program.

One, those federal dollars to Medicaid need to come back.

We need to get that signed back into law, provide certainty not just for every person in America and in New Mexico that benefits from these programs, but to the marketplace.

Because when my Republican colleagues eliminated these federal dollars to Medicaid, they also increased costs for everyone.

That's how markets work as well.

These programs need to come back.

I'm leading efforts to be able to get these dollars back.

It's the commonsense thing to do, and it's something that we should be doing that's going to help people here in New Mexico.

And in terms of overall access to health care, the Medicaid issue is one issue, but what other issues are impacting access to health care in New Mexico that the federal government can make a change in?

People are paying more for prescription drugs right now than they ever have.

There's some commonsense legislation that we've actually passed out of the United States Senate, but it's stalled in the US House of Representatives.

Republican speaker Mike Johnson refuses to let it go.

Those are commonsense efforts that will lower prescription drug prices.

I believe Medicare should be expanded the way that it was once envisioned.

Medicare, when it was first talked about, was to include vision care, hearing care, and dental care.

It was not.

That's one way to lower costs, especially for those of us that are getting a little bit older for all seniors in New Mexico and across America.

One of my colleagues from New Jersey, Andy Kim, has also introduced legislation that would provide, coverage and expansion of Medicaid to everyone under the age of 26, so there's certainty for everyone that's young in America, more certainty and lower costs for everyone.

It's getting a little bit older in the country.

And then I've been working on policies that will actually help families that take care of loved ones.

many of us in New Mexico, we take care of our parents or grandparents if they have dementia or Alzheimer's, or kids or siblings if they have some other chronic ailment.

But there's no help to these families.

This is the New Mexico way to take care of one another and provide support.

So I believe each and every one of those will help lower costs, provide certainty, and not just for those directly benefiting from these programs, but for everyone all around.

In addition to that, when President Trump eliminated the premium tax credit for the Affordable Care Act, he also made cost go higher for everyone else as well.

We need to make sure we bring those back.

Let's move on.

The Social Security Administration says it could run out of reserve funds in 2032.

What does that mean for current and future recipients, and what do you believe is the appropriate legislative fix?

So, there's a big concern right now and the facts are clear.

Social security will run out of money and we will see beneficiaries of Social Security not getting what they paid into it.

If the program is not fixed, my Republican colleagues have, on at least two occasions over the last year, passed something called the budget reconciliation bill, in which they've added trillions of dollars to the debt in America.

But they did nothing to include fixes to Social Security.

One of the commonsense fixes here is to eliminate the cap, where people that are making millions and billions of dollars every year, they cap out at $400,000 with what they contribute into the program to lift everyone up in America.

The promise of Social Security, which was brought about to ensure that no American would face financial catastrophe like we saw during the Great Depression as well.

I'm a co-sponsor of this legislation.

That's an important step.

It's not going to solve everything, but that's a first step where we can move together and provide some certainty and improve the solvency of the program.

Okay.

Thank you.

Talk about proposed changes by the Health and Human Services Department to the Head Start program and how you would approach the issue.

One area that I do not understand why the Trump administration has been so bent on eliminating a program is when it comes to Head Start.

So it surprises a lot of friends as I chat with them, that I'mone of only two United States Senators that attended Head Start.

This is a program that provides support, stability, curriculum development for families all across America.

Rather than President Trump trying to eliminate this program and trying to find a way to privatize education every step around, strengthen the program, expand the program, provide more opportunity because there's a backlog.

You also provide certainty to all of the educators, because right now we're losing educators that are teaching Head Start that are going elsewhere as well.

We need to make sure that there's more programs to support efforts like this, whether it's food, it's supporting the educators, it's supporting the programs and expanding coverage, not contracting and eliminating, as President Trump has suggested.

Okay.

What priorities do you believe the Department of Education serves, and what impact do you believe efforts to pare down or dismantle the department will have in New Mexico?

President Trump Republicans in the Senate have also been clear that they want to eliminate the United States Department of Education.

They've also said that they want to provide programs that would weaken public school education in America.

And it's all around an effort to privatize education in America.

Again, if you can't afford it, you won't get access to it.

That's the wrong way to approach this.

The current Secretary of Education, Secretary McMahon, has suggested elimination of many of the programs, especially the elimination of the department where she's the secretary as well.

That trickles down to hurting every school in every state across the country, the financial resources that come to schools as well, ensuring that there's balance in schools as well, that there's opportunity for every student, no matter what zip code or what area code you live in, that you're able to get a quality education that all needs to come to fruition, as opposed to eliminating a department that every student in America that goes to public school depends on.

Okay.

Thank you.

Artificial intelligence CEOs are sounding the alarm about the potential for harm, to say the least.

What should Congress be doing to address their concerns?

And those of every New Mexican?

Look, everything around AI today, with all the promise of being able to cure cancer or to help make lives a little more efficient, have all been toppled by the whistleblower that recently came out from OpenAI with all the concerns with threats to the human race.

Now, through this technology, there are models that are created, of which there are technology that we refer to as agents.

One of the concerns that we have now in New Mexico is that these models and these agents recently tried to break in to the University of New Mexico Health Sciences department is still information from not just research, but from patients there as well.

Fortunately, they did not get in.

Congress needs to enact clear safeguards and guardrails currently under the Department of Education.

Pardon me, currently under the Department of Energy, through the NSA and through the Department of Defense, they have some protocols associated with putting guardrails on how these agents, these models, how AI is going to work there, but it's not been shared with everyone else.

We need some common sense guardrails, rules, protocols.

That's why the industry is also calling for this oversight.

But Congress has failed in this space.

We need to come together, and I hope under a Democratic majority in the U.S.

Senate, U.S.

House, we can finally pass legislation, get it to the president for signature, make things safer in America.

Okay.

With the one minute we have left, Id like to give you the floor, Senator, to just express to voters any policy issue areas or anything about your campaign that you want to share and leave them with.

Well KC, I'm very proud to be born and raised in New Mexico.

I still live on the small farm where I was born and raised.

I'm next door neighbors with my mother.

I live right down the road from the church that I attend, from the Head Start that I once went to when I was very, very young.

everything I do is through the lens of making things better in New Mexico right now, farmers and ranchers are getting pushed around.

There's no farm bill that's been able to get adopted to them.

Diesel prices are killing them.

When that's happening, food prices are getting higher and higher for everyone else.

Everyone needs to come together to be able to lower costs for the American people.

Four years ago, I survived a stroke.

And this is what a stroke survivor can look like.

If you have access to affordable and dependable health care.

This administration and Republicans in the Senate in the House are ripping that promise apart.

I'm committed to doing everything I can to make things better for people across New Mexico.

I love this state.

It's where I will spend my last breath.

It's where I've lived my life I love, and I so much enjoy representing the people in Mexico.

And I will continue to do that if I earn the vote and support the people across New Mexico.

Everything that we should do is about home.

Last thing that I would share, KC, is no matter who people are voting for out there, whoever they're supporting, please get up and vote.

Get out and vote early voting has already begun.

Election day right around the corner.

November 3rd.

Get out.

Exercise your right to vote.

All right.

Incumbent U.S.

Senator, Democrat Ben Ray Luján, thank you very much for your time.

We appreciate it.

Oh, thank you, I appreciate that.

Thank you.

And joining us now is the Republican challenger for that U.S.

Senate seat write in candidate Larry Marker.

Thank you for joining us.

Yes, ma'am.

Thank you for having me.

And since you are more of a newcomer, why don't we start with the last question that we asked Senator Luján?

And that's to tell us just a little bit about yourself and your campaign that you think people should know.

Okay.

Well, my name is Larry Marker.

I am running for U.S.

and I'm the Republican nominee.

I was write in candidate in the primary, but we earned our spot with all of the people that wrote are, that wrote in my name, we earned our spot.

We are named on the ballot.

So we're the full fledge Republican nominee for 2026.

Very proud of that.

We're the first Senate candidate in history to accomplish that.

And we're also the number of of write in votes we got was a historical number for, for actually for all over the country.

Anyway, I was born in southeastern New Mexico, raised in southeastern New Mexico, you know, worked on drilling rigs, been in all business, been in construction, garage door business, entrepreneur my whole life.

And just naturally, I got involved in politics when when I felt like the, the regulatory agencies were pushing a little hard on me when I was in the oil and gas industry as an independent oil and gas producer.

And that's what led me into politics.

And that was about ten years ago.

And it's just grown and grown.

And here we are.

I'm running for U.S.

Senate.

So it's been it's been quite the journey, quite, quite the journey for sure.

All right.

Well, on your platform, why don't we begin with affordability from the price of gas to groceries, Americans are feeling the pinch.

Why do you believe this is happening?

And what can you do if elected to bring some relief to New Mexicans?

The affordability and the fuel prices we have right now, those are going to be short term.

Being in the oil and gas industry.

I've seen the ups and the downs and the ups and the downs.

The you know, the price of diesel is a killer.

Obviously, if I was a truck driver, if I still had my trucks, I would really, really be upset.

Now, I do believe that there's going to be short term.

We'll get we'll we'll finish the war in Iran.

And however that turns out, but I believe the price of fuel will go down.

The key to that is the United States needs to stay a net, net exporter of oil and gas.

Now, as far as the interest rates, the rest of the affordability and inflation, As U.S Senator, I'm focused on getting getting a handle on our deficit, and getting a handle on our debt.

We've got $40 trillion in debt, and this year we're projected to have a $1.9 trillion deficit.

We've got to get a handle of that, a handle on that, or we're never going to be able to get up, get a handle on inflation or interest rates.

All right.

Thank you.

Talk about how the U.S.

Senate can and should impact New Mexicans when it comes to trade policy.

Well, the way the Constitution is written as you know, we are a constitutional republic, we have separation of powers.

I personally believe, and this is probably going to upset some of my future colleagues, I personally believe that the Senate needs to get a little bit of grit.

The Senate needs to look at the Constitution, they need to identify this is our job, this is under our authority.

Taxes and tariffs are actually under the authority of the legislature.

It's not not the president's office.

I believe the president, even though I'm a Trump supporter, I believe he's pushing the envelope a little bit with his tariffs about tariff policies.

But I believe that the Senate would assert themselves and maybe be maybe be more involved in the process, that would lessen the political doubt, the political backlash that we're having right now.

But the Senate needs to assert its position and needs to stand firm for what it what its job is, what its authority is, and needs to quit delegating authority to the president or to the judicial system, the judicial branch.

I'm sorry.

That's okay.

Thank you.

Do you feel Congress should have more say in military actions around the world, and if so, how can it reclaim its power to do so?

The issue that we have with and there again, I'm I'm going to go to the, you know, what people call the Iran war right now.

What we did, when we elected President Trump, good, bad or ugly, we knew what we were getting and I knew what I was getting when I voted for Donald Trump.

We elected a guy, we hired a guy that's going to take the bull by the horns.

Now, if you look back and you're not near as old as I am, but if you look back and I wasn't even alive during the Korean conflict, that was the first war.

That was actually a war that we never called the war.

So it was okay, It was a police action.

We've had that issue in the 50s, the 60s with Vietnam.

We've had that issue for decades and decades.

We should have solved that problem years ago.

But that's one thing we need to do.

My first, my first term is we definitely had we need to identify specifically what is the president's job when it comes to declaring war.

How far can he go?

But that gets back to the Senate needs to do its job.

It needs to assert itself, read the Constitution, It would be nice if they would do that.

And I'm not going to make a lot of friends at first, but the president, the Senate actually has the authority.

The president, I'm sorry, the House and the Senate have the authority to declare war.

We need to take a look at that.

We need to identify, once and for all what the president's job is there, what his authority is.

So we never have this issue again.

All right.

Thank you.

How should the U.S.

Senate support efforts to reform immigration policy?

The, Well, for one thing, the US Senate, and they're up, there I believe, our immigration system is never going to be completely fixed until we take the benefits that one side or the other gets from the political benefits.

We need to look at this problem.

We need to realize it's a humanitarian problem.

We got the border closed.

I'm very proud of our administration.

I'm very proud of Tom Homan for what they've accomplished on the border, getting it closed down.

We need to take the next step.

We need to solidify what our policies are.

We need to get our judicial system out of it.

We need to our policies need to be set in the legislature, not not in the Oval Office and not in the courtroom.

Okay.

And what will be the impact in New Mexico of federal changes to Medicaid?

And what is your policy position on access to Medicaid?

Okay, the Medicaid is actually is pretty complicated.

That's actually more of a state issue other than the fact that half of the money that goes into Medicaid comes from the federal government, and it's Medicaid, it's the states, it's the state's job to administer those funds.

So the, the Medicaid situation, obviously, we have politically we've had some backlash lately because the president wanted to SNAP benefits, things like that.

From what I understand, the information I have, the cuts and SNAP benefits, the cuts in Medicaid and stuff are tied to the to the issues we have in New Mexico as far as the fraud and abuse.

We need there again, we need to have clear communications.

What is the state's job?

What's the federal government's job?

And how how those funds are supposed to be administered?

When you talk about Medicare, that's a more complicated issue.

But if you look at how much money.

Will get to that.

Yeah.

If you talk about if you look at how much money the United States is spending on Medicare and Medicaid, that's a huge amount of money.

So that's something that we need to address and we need to address very quickly.

Well, let's talk a little bit about the affordability of health care in the wider sense.

Yes, ma'am.

The and that is the problem.

And even when you get up in my age, my wife had to get put on Medicare.

Well, the Medicare cost more than what her health insurance did.

That's that's not a very good deal.

My health insurance is still a lot cheaper, but I'm still a few years away from having to be on Medicare.

We definitely we have a mess.

We absolutely have a mess.

Yeah.

You can go all the way back to Obamacare.

I'm not sure what we call it, what we call it now, Obamacare.

And then then again, that's a political football.

That's something that we keep kicking, we keep kicking down the road.

Unfortunately, that's an issue that only really seems to come up during the political season.

We need to get past, We need to get past, not solving problems or not bringing problems up until it's a political issue or politically advantageous.

I believe, I believe there again, people should be able to afford health insurance now, being a capitalist, being an entrepreneur, being self-employed my whole life, I personally believe we need to focus a lot more on economic development.

We need to build an economy where the cost of health care isn't out of reach for everybody, because everybody's making more money.

All right.

Thank you.

Now, the Social Security Administration says it could run out of reserve funds in 2032.

What does this mean for current and future recipients of Social Security?

And what do you believe is the appropriate legislative fix?

Okay, I actually have a full blown plan to to fix Social Security within ten years, It would be completely solvent.

The problem I have with Social Security, it doesn't seem to be a big issue politically right now.

And I'm sounding the alarm.

We're looking at reducing benefits in six years thats 2032.

Ironically, that would be the end of it, the end of my term as a senator.

What I propose we do is we look at we look at one of the ways that I want to supplement the income to Social Security is I want to build a sovereign wealth fund made from the windfall from various different, like if oil and gas, if oil and gas prices are high, the federal government is making more money.

If we sell FCC licenses, you know, for like five Gs, six Gs, whatever, those are actually auctioned off, those are windfalls.

Those are big booms for the federal government.

Instead of spending that money like a drunken sailor, what we need to do is put that into a sovereign wealth fund.

The first three years of sovereign wealth fund, the money we make on it, we reinvest in it.

Once we get to 200 billion, then the money we invest in it, the money that we made off the investment goes to supplement the income of Social Security.

We do that until we build $1 trillion sovereign wealth fund that would move that debt, that deadline date, and I know we're out of time, that would move that deadline date farther and farther away while we build that sovereign wealth fund, but we could actually make Social Security solvent within ten years.

Okay.

Now talk about proposed changes by the Health and Human Services Department to the Head Start program and how you would approach the issue.

Really long term, my goal, my goal is to build an economy to where if a couple has a child and one of them wants to stay home, the one that wants to work or the one that is working, whether it be the husband or the wife, I'm not going to get into that issue, whether it be the husband of the wife, they can have a job where they're making enough money to where they can be a stay home mom and dad.

That's my ultimate goal.

Now, short term, short term, everything we have seems to be a giveaway program that is, that is easily manipulated and not properly administered.

I'm always going to be one that wants to make government smaller.

The only way to make government smaller is we have less reliance on government, and people rely more on there self, there again I'm always I'm always going to be the one that says we need more economic development.

We need to make sure that people have the opportunity in New Mexico, which we should have as rich in natural resources we are in New Mexico, all right.

Every couple should be able to decide, do we both want to work, or does one of us want to work until we get our children right.

All right.

Well, what purpose do you believe the Department of Education serves, and what impact do you believe efforts to pare down or dismantle the department would have in New Mexico?

Okay, I was actually in school.

I'm old enough to remember school prior to the Department of Education, prior to what I called Jimmy Carter.

Okay, that's actually going to happen.

Okay, my personal belief is the federal government's involvement in education should be limited to the Department of Education, It should be limited to passing out money.

They should be the source of income.

They should be the ones that control where the money goes from the federal government to education.

And then when it goes to the states there again, I'm probably in trouble with some people.

I believe we need to dissolve the PED for the most part.

We need control of our local schools to be with the local school boards.

I'm always going to believe that because the local school boards, they live there, they work, there is community of interest.

They're all similar.

They're they're better equipped to set the standards for that school.

I believe the Department of Education and the PED should should be nothing more than basically an accountant for where the money, the tax money that goes to the school system needs to go through the the Department of Education or the PED.

But local control is what we need in our school system.

All right.

Well, believe it or not, we are out of time.

Oh, no.

Republican U.S.

Senate candidate Larry Marker, thank you so much for spending this time with us.

Thank you ma'am.

We appreciate it.

Yes, ma'am.

And thank you for watching.

Election 2026 coverage on WG Public Media.

Early voting in New Mexico continues through October 31st, In Texas It continues through October 30th and Election day is November 3rd.