Former U.S. attorney for the District of New Mexico, Alexander M.M. Uballez, announced his run for mayor of Albuquerque on April 18, 2025. Uballez was appointed to the seat by former President Joe Biden on Jan. 26, 2022. He was sworn into office on May 24, 2022. In February 2025, he resigned from his position as U.S. attorney at the request of President Donald Trump. MORE: Former U.S. Attorney becomes ninth mayoral candidate As of Friday, May 23, 2025, Uballez runs closely behind Mayor Tim Keller in petition signatures to qualify for the ballot. Keller has reached 2,634 signatures, followed by Uballez with 2,066. On Friday, KOAT's Faith Egbuonu spoke with Alex Uballez in a one-on-one interview on why he believes it's time for new leadership to bring forth change for the city of Albuquerque. Related: One-on-one with Mayor Tim Keller ahead of the Albuquerque mayoral electionFaith Egbuonu: What brought you to this decision shortly after having to step down from your former position as U.S. attorney?Alexander M.M. Uballez: It's a selfish decision, right? But not in the way you might think, I got three little kids. I want my kids to grow up in the city, but they don't feel like they have to leave for opportunity or for safety. I'm the former United States Attorney here, and I'm five weeks a politician, as of this week. I'm in this because I've spent my whole career, my whole life, protecting the most vulnerable. I've been here serving in New Mexico. Keeping families safe, ferreting out corruption, holding people who are greedy and profit off the misery of others accountable, and building opportunities for people who deserve it. For me, it's really personal. I'm not originally from here, but I think I was destined to land here when I fell in love at 19, with the girl from Albuquerque who's now my wife. So, we chose Albuquerque. We live in Albuquerque downtown. We have three kids here. We see in Albuquerque that could be so much better for our future. We see the needs of our community. We see public safety and homelessness, and just the stagnation in our economy and development. For me, like I said, it's selfish, right? It's because I want my kids— eight, six, and three, I want my kids when they grow up to choose Albuquerque like I did. I want them to choose to build their lives here, and their careers here, and follow their dreams here. Build houses here, and build their families here. Down the block for me. So, it's really personal. Egbuonu: What was the driving force behind the decision?Uballez: The driving force was I think people want a choice. Looking back at the last election in 24, and looking at our democracy as a big group project that we're all involved in, it exists so long as we believe in it. What that means is it exists so long that we believe that our vote matters. That when we show up, that the things that we care about are the things our elected leaders will do. People stop showing up when they think their choices are being made for them, when they think that they have to vote for somebody who's ineffective because the only other option is somebody who's wrong. This is how democracy dies. People deserve not just the forward movement and energy of a new leader, they deserve a choice on the ballot so they can decide and so that those leaders can clash and bring ideas together and the public can hear the discourse and they can vote for the person who is performing the best and giving them the best for what they deserve in their government. Crime, Homelessness and Public SafetyEgbuonu: How do you plan to address these issues of concern for New Mexicans if you win (crime, homelessness, etc.)? Mayor Tim Keller announced he's running for a third term. Some voters are happy with what he has claim to accomplished, while others believe otherwise. Uballez: The third term is the thing that voters give to people when it's a victory lap. When they've absolutely crushed it and delivered on all the promises and are like, 'Yes, keep going, bring it back one more time.' I don't think that anybody thinks that's where we are today. Public safety, homelessness, economic developments. It's the stagnation in where we thought we were growing and going as a city and a community. There's a lot we can do. So I bring, of course, public safety as the place I've spent the past 15 years, my entire professional career. During that time, I learned the skills that I need to lead this city, not only through the public safety challenges, but through all of them. As a United States attorney, we took down major drug trafficking cartels. We extradited cartel leaders. We're responsible for the biggest fentanyl take down in DEA's history, the biggest fentanyl take down in the FBI's history nationwide, worldwide, here in New Mexico. On top of that, we ferreted out 30 years of corruption in Albuquerque Police Department's DWI unit, a thing that continued through multiple mayors, multiple chiefs, multiple U.S. attorneys and DAs. We did this all in 32 months. I'm running for mayor because I'm a doer. I get things done. When I took over the office, I sent out an all-hands email. It was entitled 32 months. It was because I knew that — who knows who's going to win the election? But that was the tenor, that was the speed and the urgency with which I wanted to get things done, because I knew that it could end, and it did. During that time, we had these massive headlines consistently throughout, and you think about bringing down 30 years of public corruption in only 32 months, and not only that, not just charging people, but bringing them to conclusion, bringing them conviction in 12 months in the most complex RICO case this state has ever seen. That's getting things done. We need the energy to get things done here. There's two things really we need to focus on, and of course the things underneath them that they impact. The two things are public safety and economic development. The things that they impact, of course, are homelessness, addiction, and mental health. If we focus on smart approaches to each of these things, then we will touch all of the problems that we are seeing on our streets. We have the answers, right? These answers have been studied and written about by experts across the nation, and there are proven results and they are proven approaches. They've all been on this mayor's desk, probably for the past eight years. What this city is lacking is a leadership who act boldly and bravely and move us forward with the energy that we need to get where we need to go.We have the solutions. We've had them for a long time. The issue is implementing them and bringing them to Albuquerque so that people feel it. So, we feel the change here. What that means in public safety is sort of a smart response. Imagine picking up the phone and you're calling over to a dispatch that are full of commissioned first responders, people who are trained to be able to ascertain what the issue is and what the proper response is. So, sometimes it's cops, sometimes it is guns, sometimes it's people who can go run into a terrifying and dangerous situation. Other times, it's social service providers, mental health providers, people who are equipped to deal with addiction. So, those people can go out and deal with the issue in a holistic way that supports the actual underlying problem instead of addressing everything as if it were a criminal justice issue. Imagine a place where we have on the development side, right, because I said there is sort of two main focuses and attacks each of the underlying issues. On the development site, imagine a planning department that's responsive and gets plans approved quickly. Imagine inspectors who are assigned to large projects and can immediately approve them and get onto site so the foundation is good, the electrical is good. You can keep moving instead of having people sitting around waiting. Imagine that we're working in public-private partnerships with businesses and developers, giving them incentives, right? From the city side of the bonds and IRBs. So they can build. But imagine if we also had a community benefit agreement for every one of our large municipal authority or one of a large municipal developments, the PLA say about $10 million, was all union-based with high standards for workers and contributed to a fund, small amounts, to a Fund for City Housing. Imagine with that fund, we built social housing, we built it on micro grids, we built with union labor, and we put water catchment, we put solar panels on top. So that every watt that we produced in the city-owned housing that's affordable for people to live in and that unions built, we could tax the federal government and they would pay for it. We can do all of the things. We can make everybody happy. We have solutions that integrate everyone together, that solve for everything, that make the developers happy, that have affordable housing, that have good union jobs, increasing standards for our workers, save the planet, and build our city. We just need the leadership with the energy to get it done, to come through on the ideas that we've all had forever. Petition Signatures, Public FinancingEgbuonu: Your campaign team specifically stated via e-mail that you're No. 2 in signature collection, closely behind Mayor Keller in the field of 11 candidates, which is completely different from public financing. We looked into that and found that you are No. 3 in both valid petition signatures and verified qualifying contributions. What's your take?Uballez: I think new numbers came out today , and that's what you're looking at. Egbuonu: Yes. We got this today. Actually, this morning. Would you like to touch on that briefly? I have follow-up questions with that.Uballez: Absolutely. There's two separate things here, obviously, qualifying for the ballot, which I'm confident we will do. We've always been putting up high numbers there. I think it's because people here want change. They want some other options on the ballot. There's a public financing piece. So, public financing is a thing I believe strongly in. It is a great solution the city came up with to help keep big money out of politics, so that the people in the office are working for the people. So, I believe in it. But the public financing system is one that you can use, so the political system, I'll say, broadly, is one that gives advantage to people with deep pockets, and the public financing system is one that gives an edge to people of deep systems of raising money from the people. I've been a politician for five weeks, I've built my system and network of people and support in five weeks and so we are committed to getting those qualifying donations because I believe it's the right thing to do, it's the right thing to serve the city and it is the right thing to keep our politicians accountable to the people. I have told people give me five dollars, but please give everyone else five dollars too, right? Because that is the way that we ensure when we vote in November, we're voting for someone who will work for us.Egbuonu: To clarify, at some point, were you No. 2? Because you stated these numbers came out this morning (Friday, May 23).Uballez: For the petition signatures, we led for the first three weeks, and we fell to number two last week, I think.Egbuonu: What do you think is the reason it dropped? Uballez: A change in our campaign staff. After week two, we rebuilt our campaign staff entirely. So, it's a brand new team. What's next?Egbuonu: Let's say you don't win, what's next for you?Uballez: Serving the people of New Mexico. It's what I've spent my whole life doing. It's protecting the most vulnerable, it's protecting our families and building support systems for them. I don't know where I'm going to end up, but I know no matter where it is, it is going to be still doing the same work that I've done for my whole career, just protecting New Mexicans.As of Thursday, May 23, 2025, 11 candidates have officially filed for the Albuquerque mayoral race, including Mayor Tim Keller. Keller officially announced his run for reelection on Thursday, March 13, 2025.11 Albuquerque Mayoral CandidatesMayling ArmijoEddie VarelaPatrick SaisDarren WhiteTimothy KellerLouie SanchezAlpana AdairBrian FejerAlexander M.M. UballezDaniel ChavezAdeo Herrick The deadline to submit petition signatures is June 21, 2025. KOAT is profiling candidates closest to reaching the mark to qualify and/or leading the collection of private donors to qualify for public financing. In 2025, City Council Districts 1, 3, 5, 7, and 9 are also up for election on Nov. 4. Stay updated on the latest news with the KOAT app. Download here.