Raúl Torrez

Raúl Torrez is the Democratic incumbent Attorney General of New Mexico, seeking a second term after serving as Bernalillo County district attorney and as a federal prosecutor. His office has prioritized child protection, including lawsuits against Meta and Snap, and joined a multistate lawsuit challenging a federal fuel-economy rule.[1][2][3]

Torrez graduated from Harvard University, where he earned a bachelor's degree in government, and earned a master's degree from the London School of Economics.[1][3] He worked for the Cesar Chavez Foundation in Los Angeles before earning his law degree from Stanford Law School in 2005.[3]

Torrez began his legal career in 2005 as an assistant district attorney in Valencia County and the next year joined the New Mexico Attorney General's office; Source NM reports that he began his career litigating child abuse cases.[3][4] He served as chief counsel to House Speaker Ben Luján in 2008 and as a White House Fellow in the class of 2009–2010 under President Barack Obama.[3][4] He then returned to Albuquerque as a prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney's Office and a senior adviser in the U.S. Department of Justice, and ran a solo law firm.[1][3]

Torrez won the Democratic nomination for Bernalillo County district attorney in 2016 and the general election without Republican opposition, serving from 2017 to 2023.[3] In 2022 he defeated State Auditor Brian Colón in the Democratic primary for Attorney General and Republican Jeremy Gay in the general election, 55.3% to 44.6%, and took office in January 2023.[3][4]

As Attorney General, Torrez has focused on child safety, consumer protection, environmental enforcement and government transparency.[3] His office's undercover investigations of online child exploitation include Operation MetaPhile and Operation Overwatch.[3] In August 2026 a court ordered Meta to pay $942 million and overhaul protections for children on Facebook and Instagram in the New Mexico case.[2] Torrez's wife, Nasha, is an attorney and a dean at the University of New Mexico, and they have two children.[3]

Researched from the cited sources on 2026-10-21.