ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — Democrat Teresa Leger Fernandez has won a seat in Congress to succeed allied U.S. Rep. Ben Ray Luján.

The Latina attorney and consultant to indigenous communities defeated Republican engineer Alexis Johnson and will become the first woman to represent the 3rd Congressional District spanning northern New Mexico.

Democrats rallied around Leger Fernandez in a seven-way primary election that included former CIA operative Valerie Plame. Leger Fernandez’s campaign was backed by a long list of advocacy groups for progressive causes and greater Latina representation in Congress.

Johnson campaigned as a conservative political outsider in a district where registered Democrats outnumber Republicans nearly 2-1.

Luján is running for U.S. Senate as Sen. Tom Udall retires.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — Democratic U.S. Rep. Debra Haaland has won reelection to a second term in Congress for New Mexico, as the state sends its first all-female U.S. House delegation to Congress.

Haaland defeated former police detective Michelle Garcia Holmes to hold onto her 1st District seat representing the Albuquerque area. She ran for reelection as a vocal critic of President Donald Trump and a self-described “fierce" advocate on issues of racial, economic and environmental justice.

Haaland has emerged as a progressive voice in Congress who supports moving to a government-run Medicare-for-all health plan, stricter restrictions on firearms and aggressive policies to address climate change and bolster voting rights for racial minorities.

She initially backed the presidential campaign of Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren before rallying behind presidential nominee Joe Biden.

Haaland is former chairwoman of the state Democratic Party. She is also a member of Laguna Pueblo and won an open race in 2018 to become one of the first Native American women in Congress.

Garcia Holmes, a Republican, embraced Trump’s law-and-order agenda. She visited Tuesday with voters in a majority Hispanic district in Albuquerque and said New Mexicans are tired of the poverty and dismal educational outcomes that persist in the Democrat-led state.

The congressional contest drawing the most attention in New Mexico is the close race in the southern district. Republicans are trying to recover what has traditionally been a GOP-leaning seat in the Democrat dominated state.

Democratic U.S. Rep. Xochitl Torres Small is seeking a second term in her race against Republican challenger Yvette Herrell that is a rematch of 2018 and will be decided by turnout.

Torres Small dropped by polling places in Dona Ana County on Tuesday, including her alma mater of Mayfield High School. She said she was energized, inspired and a little nervous.

“I know how important today is,” she told reporters.

New Republican registrations in the 2nd District had outpaced Democrats by more than double the margin of victory in the previous contest, and Herrell this time made an effort to broaden her campaign beyond the region's more conservative strongholds. She spent part of Tuesday praying, thanking her supporters and calling voters throughout the district to ensure they were casting ballots.

“There is more work to be done, with voters still heading to the polls. Stay in line, your vote matters!" she said on social media.

Herrell has embraced Trump’s border wall strategy and has promoted her pro-petroleum philosophy in her bid to unseat Torres Small. She also tried to draw parallels between her opponent and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, with ads focused on Torres Small's voting record and ties to gun control activists flooding the airwaves during the campaign's final days.

During her first term, Torres Small attempted to portray herself as a moderate who opposes her party's line on certain issues, like banning fracking and limiting oil and gas development on federal land.

Torres Small tried to distance herself from comments made by Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden — who has waffled on oil and gas development, saying early on that he opposed fracking only to be corrected by his campaign and then later suggested he would ban new drilling permits on federal land.

The issue of energy development is important in New Mexico, which is home to part of one of the world's richest oil and natural gas basins. Revenue from the industry underpins the state budget and supports tens of thousands of jobs.

While Torres Small maintained a fundraising edge throughout the race, Herrell received a surge in donations during the third quarter. She raised more than $1 million — one of the biggest fundraising quarters for a Republican congressional candidate in state history.

In recent weeks, Trump and other big-name Republicans campaigned virtually for Herrell.

Trump won the district by 10 points in 2016, and GOP voters are again energized during this presidential election cycle. Torres Small won the district in 2018 by a slim margin during a Democratic wave.

The election also marks another milestone because in all of the U.S. House races, at least one Latina or one Native American woman was on the ballot, making for some of the most diverse political battles in the U.S.

In northern New Mexico, Democratic attorney Teresa Leger Fernandez and Republican engineer Alexis Johnson are competing in an open race to succeed U.S. Rep. Ben Ray Luján as he runs for U.S. Senate.

Whoever wins will become the first woman to hold the 3rd District seat since its creation in 1983. Registered Democrats outnumber Republicans nearly 2-1 in the district, which overlaps portions of the Navajo Nation and includes other Native American communities.

Leger Fernandez supports new investments in renewable energy and a transition toward a single-payer health care system. Johnson campaigned on an anti-abortion platform that emphasized limited government in the heavily Roman Catholic district.