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Swing-district debate hinges on oil sector, border security

Yvette Herrell (left) and Rep. Xochitl Torres-Small (right)

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — GOP congressional challenger Yvette Herrell embraced President Donald Trump’s border-wall strategy for immigration enforcement and burnished an anti-abortion, pro-petroleum philosophy in a bid to unseat Democratic Rep. Xochitl Torres Small at a network-televised debate. At Wednesday's encounter from an Albuquerque studio on live TV, Torres Small cast herself as a pragmatist who has focused on high-tech drug interdiction at border ports of entry and her opposition to efforts in Congress to ban fracking. Absentee and limited early voting have begun across New Mexico. The 2nd Congressional District race is a rematch from 2018, when Herrell declined to debate and lost by fewer than 4,000 votes.