Ronchetti leaves KRQE to consider run for N.M. governor

Television weatherman Mark Ronchetti resigned Thursday as KRQE-TV’s chief meteorologist to consider a run for governor of New Mexico. Ronchetti, a Republican, long has been said to be mulling a gubernatorial campaign after he finished second — and much better than many expected — in last year’s U.S. Senate race against Ben Ray Luján, a six-term U.S. representative and scion of a well-known political family.

The Republican nominee for governor will face off against Democratic incumbent Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham in the November 2022 election, and political observers have said Ronchetti could be a formidable opponent. Unlike the seven Republicans who already have announced their intention to seek the GOP nomination, Ronchetti has statewide name recognition and proved he could raise money when he ran for the Senate. A political novice at the time, Ronchetti won 46 percent of the vote in the three-way race.

Democrats reacted swiftly to Ronchetti potentially jumping into the governor’s race.

“ ‘Misleading’ Mark has repeatedly lied to the people of New Mexico, publicly denying his political ambitions while privately holding closed-door meetings for his gubernatorial campaign,” Delaney Corcoran, a spokeswoman for the Democratic Party of New Mexico, wrote in an email.
“Ronchetti’s lies are only the latest update to his extremist record — from clinging to Trump in Ronchetti's failed Senate race, to threatening to dismantle women’s rights, to rejecting the science behind COVID-19 protections, and climate change, Ronchetti has shown he will always prioritize personal political gain at the expense of New Mexicans,” she wrote.

Ronchetti would shake up the race if he ran for governor.
“Yes, absolutely this changes the landscape of the governor’s race, both making MLG’s chances of getting a second term a little less likely, and making Ronchetti the front-runner for the GOP nomination,” he wrote.