New Mexico Election 2026: New Mexico State Auditor

The New Mexico Office of the State Auditor employs 35 people to root out financial fraud, waste or abuse in more than 1,000 public entities in New Mexico, from large state agencies to tiny political entities like acequias or municipal water systems.

The Nov. 3 general election for the office will feature incumbent Democratic State Auditor Joseph Maestas against Republican Joshua James Ryan Lawrence, a business owner and conservative activist who will appear on the ballot as a write-in candidate. 

Whoever wins will inherit an office Maestas says public employees are increasingly turning to with credible fraud complaints, and one he says is stretched to complete its mandate due to limited state resources and fewer certified public accountants in the workforce. 

The auditor earns a salary of $144,000 a year and oversees an office with a roughly $6.3 million budget. In the last year, the office has released high-profile audits of Mora County’s distribution of federal disaster funding and local governments’ failure to spend opioid settlement dollars. 

Source NM spoke to both candidates about their visions for the office and why they’re running. Their answers below have been edited for clarity and concision. 

Joshua James Ryan Lawrence

Joshua James Ryan Lawrence was born in Mesquite, Texas, but has lived in New Mexico since age 19, most recently in Tucumcari. He’s worked in or owned various businesses related to film or events over the last 20 years here and said the state’s COVID-19 lockdown policies cemented his turn from a “liberal Democrat” to a “constitutional conservative.” 

In 2022, Lawrence ran unsuccessfully in the Republican primary to become Bernalillo County sheriff, earning about 14% of the vote among four candidates. He also said he intended to run in this year’s Republican gubernatorial primary but dropped out when he saw the slate of candidates. 

“I decided to switch over to auditor because I believe that I can definitely jump in and bring transparency to the auditor’s office and audit everything and everybody,” he said. 

What makes you the most qualified to be state auditor? 

I truly care about the well-being and the prosperity of the people of this state, and I’m willing to find the best of the best of the people to work with, work with our federal government, work with the [defunct U.S. Department of Government Efficiency] to literally uncover and expose anything and everything, and I care about our Constitution and our founding documents.

What is the aspect of being state auditor that is most overlooked, in your opinion?

Corruption. I mean, nothing is looked at. Why are we the poorest state? Why are we the hungriest state? Why are we everything? Why has Epstein Ranch not been opened up? Why are elected officials multimillionaires while in service?

Is anybody looking into those things? Is our auditor, is our treasurer, our attorney general, is anybody looking into those things? No, they’re all fighting Trump. Trump’s not in New Mexico. We need to look into the people here in New Mexico and uncover everything because it could be instantly done. Instantly.

How effective has the fraud, waste and abuse hotline been for the office and how could it be improved?

Does anybody in the state know about that hotline? Does the auditor utilize his platform to inform the people of the state about what comes in through that platform? And do we see the results of it? No.

I will make sure that everything is loud. I will use our platform to expose and to show and to teach and educate everybody in the state what’s happening. You know how it’s been happening, why it’s happening, and how we can change it. I don’t hear any solutions from anybody in elected office right now, especially in the controlling party. And I think everybody has the same sentiments.

If elected, do you have any new initiatives you intend to implement in the office?

Oh, absolutely. We will spend as much time as we need, hopefully not longer than a month or two, overlooking how everything is run, what everybody is doing. We will vet everybody in the office. Ultimately, the plan is for small government. 

So I definitely plan on overhauling the entire office, minimizing it, putting the most qualified people in there, ensure that all auditors and everybody that we’re doing business with are as New Mexican as possible, because a lot of our money is our auditors and these companies are out of state, and I want to implement a New Mexico DOGE office.

DOGE utilizes AI, and they utilize qualified people to dig into everything and see where every penny is spent, and making it completely transparent so that people can see everything that’s going on.

What was the most significant audit that’s come out of the office in the last four years?

I would say absolutely nothing. We’re still in the same boat.

How prevalent would you say fraud, waste and/or abuse is across New Mexico state agencies?

I’d say that I believe that New Mexico is one of the worst in this country when it comes to fraud, waste and abuse.

Once again, we’re still 50th in education. [The state Children, Youth and Families Department] — only now are you seeing the issues. We should have seen auditors opening up those books a long time ago. The trafficking that comes out of the state and the missing children is insane, especially on our reservations. There’s actually no investigations. The auditor has the ability to audit and look into everything. Why haven’t we seen anything? Why now? And even what we see now is minute compared to the issues that we’re faced with.

What is the most common problem audits of state agencies identify?

I’ve not seen the fruit of anything that this auditor has put out. Yeah, you know the misappropriations of funds, the RICO and racketeering, the theft, fraud and extortion that is happening through every agency, through every county and municipality is through the roof.

Joseph Maestas

Joseph Maestas, the Democratic incumbent, was raised in Santa Cruz, New Mexico, and holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in civil engineering and is a certified fraud examiner.

He came to the State Auditor’s Office in 2022 after serving on the New Mexico Public Regulation Commission. Before that, he served as  Española’s mayor, and on both Española and the City of Santa Fe’s city councils. If re-elected, Maestas said he hopes to ensure the office has all the resources it needs from the state Legislature to continue its statutorily required duties and also to rebuild a pipeline of qualified accountants that the state sorely needs. 

What makes you the most qualified to be state auditor? 

I have almost four years of experience as state auditor, and I have led this agency through a lot of change and accomplishments, and we’re poised to do even more in the next four years if the voters of New Mexico will have me for a second term. 

I’ve dedicated my whole life to public service. I was able to get legislation passed, whether it was the City of Santa Fe or the PRC, so I think I have a solid record of elected public service.

What is the aspect of being state auditor that is most overlooked, in your opinion?

The function of it. I take every single opportunity to explain without geeking out what the state auditor does, but I think there’s a great lack of understanding of what the office does. I think that that is the most misunderstood. Audits, to most people, are boring. 

How effective has the fraud, waste and abuse hotline been for the office and how could it be improved?

We implemented a new case management system that has really helped to streamline the way we manage these cases, and so we can always be more efficient. However, we have experienced an incredible increase in our fraud, waste, and abuse complaints. 

In fiscal year 2025, we had 254 complaints that were credible, that we created cases for, and we had 452 in fiscal year ’26. That’s a 78% increase in fraud, waste and abuse complaints between those two fiscal years. Right now, we probably have a caseload of about 350 active cases.

So how can we improve it? We’re resource limited. We need to continue streamlining our case management system. We think that AI can play a role to help manage these cases.

If re-elected, do you have any new initiatives you intend to implement in the office?

We hired a contractor to develop a customized AI program to streamline our audit report review process reviewing audit reports that independent public accounting firms send in. We’re just that inundated, and we need help. We need more human resources, and we are going to ask for more human resources for our financial audit division in our fiscal year 2028 budget. I want the appropriators to know that I’m doing everything I can to make this office as efficient as possible, and I feel that this AI initiative is going to be very, very effective.

The other initiative that I have is that right now the accounting industry is experiencing a workforce crisis. Let me put it that way. There are fewer and fewer CPAs. A lot of the CPAs are baby boomers. I think 75% are already eligible to retire.

I am pushing legislation to create our own program to integrate accounting into [Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics curriculum], and this could vastly improve the awareness of accounting. I think it’s going to accelerate the integration of exciting technologies into accounting, like AI, like blockchain learning, data analytics.

What was the most significant audit that’s come out of the office in the last four years?

Doña Ana County [in May 2026]. I mean that’s the second largest county in the state. The audit revealed 42 findings and uncovered widespread dysfunctions throughout the county administration. This was a special audit, and it was an audit done at the request of the independent requests of the Doña Ana County Sheriff and the Doña Ana County administration.

We sent a referral to the Department of Finance and Administration, and the Department of Finance and Administration put Doña Ana County on restrictions. They cannot manage their own capital outlay. They have to hire a fiscal agent until they resolve each and every finding in that report. This is significant.

How prevalent would you say fraud, waste and/or abuse is across New Mexico state agencies?

It’s prevalent. There is a statute and it requires any entity that has any knowledge of apparent fraud, waste and abuse, they have to notify my office, and some of these entities forget. They forget to do that. We’ll read about this in the paper, you know, in some place in New Mexico, and we have to ding them in their audit for not notifying us. So there’s even a lack of understanding of the statute that requires folks with any knowledge of apparent fraud, waste and abuse that they need to notify our office.

What is the most common problem audits of state agencies identify?

I’d say a lack of internal controls and the lack of adherence of established policies and procedures.