Dylan McArthur
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Dylan McArthur
A Roswell native has received an award for his work managing the successful reelection campaign of U.S. Rep. Gabe Vasquez (D-NM-02).
Dylan McArthur was one of ten recipients — five Democrats and five Republicans — of a 2024 Top Ops Award from the American Association of Political Consultants (AAPC) last month, just days after the election.
Anna Ross, communications coordinator for the AAPC, told the Roswell Daily Record that the award recognizes the talent of campaign staff, advisors, interest group leaders and political party committee professionals whose work shaped the 2024 election cycle.
Nominees were submitted between Aug. 1 and Nov. 6, with the winner determined by a panel of the association’s members.
Ross confirmed that McArthur was nominated for what she described as his pivotal role in securing Vasquez’s reelection in a hotly contested rematch with his 2022 opponent, former U.S. Rep. Yvette Herrell (R-NM-02).
“His nominator shared how his creativity and determination set the tone for a winning campaign, improving upon his (Vasquez’s) 2022 showing against former Rep. Yvette Herrell, beating her by 4 points, 52-48 percent, after eking out a 1,350-vote win last cycle,” Ross said in a recent email to the Roswell Daily Record.
McArthur recently told the Roswell Daily Record that he was honored by the recognition, but that the victory was a team effort.
“It feels great to be recognized, but I am humbled because I wouldn’t be here without the stellar staff we had and a candidate who is willing to put in the work to execute the campaign plan,” he said.
McArthur, 30, received the award following a year in the political trenches, in which he devised strategy, handled campaign logistics and helped Vasquez weather the slings and arrows of an often-contentious race. Despite the pressure, McArthur said the experience was one he valued.
“It was a great time, a very special time in my life, and I don’t know if I will ever be able to replicate it again,” he said.
McArthur now lives in Albuquerque, but he was born and raised in Roswell, attending local schools and eventually graduating from Roswell High and later obtaining an associate degree from the New Mexico Military Institute,
His parents divorced at a young age, and McArthur was raised primarily by his mother Sarah, the current chair of the Democratic Party of New Mexico, and his grandparents.
From an early age, McArthur was interested in current events and politics amid the backdrop of the 9/11 attacks and the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq.
“I remember watching the adults in my life have a lot of uncertainty, and so I ended up watching a lot of news with my parents and grandparents,” he said.
When he first registered to vote, McArthur did so as a Republican, choosing the political affiliation of his grandparents. However, as a student in college and graduate school at the University of New Mexico McArthur’s interest in politics began to deepen, and he began to form his own political identity.
“As soon as I got to college, I found myself hanging out with more liberal-minded people in the humanities field,” he explained. McArthur said that then-President Barack Obama also was an influence in his decision to re-register as a Democrat.
After obtaining a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in political science, McArthur waded into the world of professional politics, starting as a volunteer on the campaigns of U.S. Reps. Deb Haaland (D-NM-01) and Xochitl Torres Small (D-NM-02). In 2021, McArthur took his first paid campaign position as an organizer and researcher for the campaign of future U.S. Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-NM-01).
From there, McArthur went on to manage the reelection campaign of New Mexico Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver and pushed for passage of a voting rights bill in the legislature as a lobbyist for the Center for Civic Action, an Albuquerque-based progressive policy advocacy group.
Last year, McArthur applied for the campaign manager position with the Vasquez campaign.
“I had known Gabe a little bit beforehand on a personal level, and I just know he is someone I relate to, someone who carries himself with character,” he said.
Vasquez offered him the job in August of 2023.
“I remember I was sitting in my kitchen eating cereal when he called and asked me if I wanted to do it. And without missing a beat, I said yes,” McArthur recalled.
Before McArthur came aboard, the race was already the most-watched race in New Mexico and seen as one that could determine the balance of power in the U.S. House of Representatives.
“Everybody knows that New Mexico is often overlooked in national politics, and this is our really unique opportunity to have an impact on the next House majority,” he said.
As campaign manager, McArthur oversaw a $7 million operation that included about 50 paid staff and legions of volunteers and consultants.
The schedule was intense, McArthur said. As a sitting member of Congress, McArthur often had to balance Vasquez’s commitments as a member with the need to campaign in a geographically vast district.
Throughout the campaign, McArthur and his team had to deal with everything from critiques of his record on immigration and border security to an electorate still reeling from the impacts of inflation to the baggage of having an unpopular president of his own party in the White House.
Both political parties and a slew of outside interest groups were weighing in on it, attempting to influence the outcome by pouring millions of dollars in attack ads into the race.
“To have so much money dumped in attacking him (Vasquez), of course, that was hard,” McArthur said.
Vasquez won his reelection bid, something McArthur said he was confident in throughout the contest.
He said that as someone who grew up as a child in Mexico, speaks fluent Spanish, and was raised by a single mother from a humble economic background, voters within the district, which is majority Hispanic, could identify with Vasquez and he with them.
He added that Vasquez’s willingness to commit to a rigorous schedule and his knowledge and record on issues specific to his district helped draw voters to his side. McArthur cites Vasquez’s work with the rest of the New Mexico delegation on attempts to win passage of the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, or RECA, which compensates downwinders who have suffered due to radiation exposure from uranium mining and atomic testing, as an example of such an issue.
McArthur said that provides a candidate like Vasquez a chance to come into communities and open a dialogue with voters about his record.
“I think that is fundamentally what he tried to do. And we just tried to communicate through his ads, through our social media, through his press interviews that singularly this is a better person who is better for New Mexico,” he explained.
But while Vasquez improved upon his margins from his last election, many Democrats did not fare as well.
The next Congress will begin with Democrats for the first time in seven years, being in the minority in both the U.S. House and Senate and with President-elect Donald Trump back in the White House.
McArthur said that while Vasquez won his district, many of those same voters also went for Trump by three points.
Why the Democratic nominee for president, Vice President Kamala Harris and many of the party’s candidates in down-ballot races did not win, is something his party has to grapple with.
“I think it’s going to be rough, I think it’s going to require candid conversations, it’s going to require us to come to the reality that we didn’t do well on the national stage,” he said.
That discussion, McArthur said, is likely going to continue at least up into the 2028 presidential elections.
Trump and Republicans also made inroads among key parts of Democrats’ traditional coalition, such as Hispanics. McArthur says that the Republican Party of the Trump era, with its populism, can speak to working-class voters in a way that the Republican Party of the past was often unable to do.
A key part of restoring the Democratic Party’s fortunes, he says, is for the party to reach out to working-class voters who feel disconnected from it.
“Whoever wins the majority of working-class support is going to be the party that wins,” McArthur said.
As for his own future, McArthur said that since Vasquez’s campaign ended, he has received offers from campaigns both in and outside of New Mexico. But for now, he is taking a break from politics.
“I’m just reading, visiting family, going to conferences and playing a good amount of video games, as well as hanging out with my dog. That is my priority now,” he said.
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