SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — New Mexico is sending a Latino politician to the U.S. Senate for the first time since the 1970s with the election of U.S. Rep. Ben Ray Luján in a victory for Democrats, but Republicans scored a win by reclaiming a conservative-leaning southern congressional district.

GOP congressional challenger Yvette Herrell defeated U.S. Rep. Xochitl Torres Small in New Mexico's conservative 2nd District in a rematch of the 2018 election.

The district on border with Mexico spans several staunchly Republican counties where the economy depends heavily on oil production.

Democrat Joe Biden won the state's presidential vote by a wide margin to claim five Electoral College delegates. County election boards on Wednesday were wrapping up final counts of a few thousand outstanding absentee and provisional ballots.

The mixed results with voter participation that shattered records "show that New Mexico is not blue. It is clearly a purple state,” said Lonna Atkeson, a political science professor at the University of New Mexico.

Democratic attorney Teresa Leger Fernandez will succeed Luján in the northern 3rd Congressional District and Democratic U.S. Rep. Deb Haaland easily won a second term in the Albuquerque-based district.

Democrats successfully defended legislative majorities in the state House and Senate, and women expanded their political representation in both chambers of the Legislature, as New Mexico elected an all-female delegation to the U.S. House.

A slate of progressive Democratic candidates for state Senate office met with mixed results. Republican Crystal Diamond defeated Democrat Neomi Martinez-Parra for a seat held for decades by Democratic Sen. John Arthur Smith. Martinez-Parra ousted Smith in the Democratic primary.

Several progressive Democrats won first terms, including Carrie Hamblen of Las Cruces — whose primary nomination in June knocked out Democratic Senate President Mary Kay Papen, an opponent of abortion and recreational marijuana.

“Despite some painful losses, last night was a huge victory for progressives and women in the Legislature,” said Eric Griego, state director of a progressive coalition group under the Working Families Party.

University of New Mexico political science professor Gabriel Sanchez said that Democratic legislators lied with New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham are better positioned to push through initiatives to increase spending on early childhood education, possible overturn the state's 1969 abortion ban and legalize sales and taxation of recreational marijuana.

“The timing is probably ideal to try to push that stuff through now, especially recreational marijuana, because it can be framed that this as a means of generating economic revenue,” he said.

Luján´s victory ends a 44-year hiatus from Hispanic leadership in New Mexico´s U.S. Senate delegation, since Democratic Sen. Joseph Montoya lost reelection in 1976.

Luján, a six-term congressman and son of a state House speaker, defeated Republican former television meteorologist Mark Ronchetti and Libertarian scientist Bob Walsh.

Latinos have a long history of holding high-elected office in New Mexico under political traditions that date back to Mexican and Spanish-colonial rule in the region.

Lujan Grisham, a distant cousin to Luján by marriage, is the state’s third consecutive Hispanic governor and her grandfather served on the state Supreme Court.

Latino voters were more likely to support Luján while Ronchetti had an apparent advantage over Luján among white voters, according to AP VoteCast, a national survey of the electorate. The survey reached 1,654 voters in New Mexico over an eight-day period ending Tuesday.

Suburban voters also leaned toward Luján over Ronchetti, the survey found. Voters in cities were more likely to support Luján, while voters in small towns and rural areas were divided.

Biden’s statewide election victory without a campaign visit to New Mexico extends a string of victories for Democratic presidential candidates in the state. The last time a Republican won the state's electoral votes was in 2004 with George W. Bush's victory.

In other results, two state Supreme Court justices previously appointed by Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham won election to eight-year terms.

Incumbent Justice Shannon Bacon, a former state district judge from Albuquerque, defeated Republican challenger Ned Fuller. Incumbent Justice David Thomson defeated Republican attorney Kerry Morris of Albuquerque.

A ballot measure was approved that will overhaul the Public Regulation Commission that oversees electric utilities, pipeline safety and telecommunications.

The panel will be made up of three members appointed by the governor instead of five elected commissioners.

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Associated Press Writer Susan Montoya Bryan contributed from Albuquerque.