Teresa Leger Fernández

Teresa Leger Fernández grew up in Las Vegas, New Mexico, and attended one of the state's early Head Start classrooms.¹ Her mother was a bilingual educator and her father served in the state Senate; she raised three sons of her own.²

She graduated from Yale and Stanford Law School before returning to New Mexico to work as a public interest lawyer.¹ Her legal and community work included tribal sovereignty, voting rights, housing and acequia waters, along with service as an acequia commissioner and a White House fellow working on housing.¹

Leger Fernández entered Congress in 2021 and serves on the Rules and Natural Resources committees, including as the leading Democrat on the Indian and Insular Affairs Subcommittee.³¹ Her colleagues elected her chair of the Democratic Women's Caucus, and her congressional work has included legislation addressing housing assistance and protections for Native cultural items.¹

She faces Republican state Representative Martin Zamora in the Third District, with rural costs, water and recovery from the Hermits Peak and Calf Canyon fire among her campaign priorities.³ She proposes expanding access to homeownership, completing tribal water settlements and increasing rural health care providers, while continuing to press for compensation and clean water assistance for fire affected communities.³