Later Losing Campaigns
Cargo could not seek a third two-year term in 1970. Gubernatorial terms were changed to one four-year term with the 1970 election, and subsequently two four-year terms with the 1990 election. Cargo hence ran for the U.S. Senate in 1970, but he lost the Republican primary to the conservative choice, Anderson "Andy" Carter, who was later a Ronald Reagan leader in New Mexico. Carter polled 32,122 (57.8 percent) to Cargo's 17,951 (32.3 percent). Andy Carter then lost the general election to incumbent Democrat Joseph M. Montoya, who later became nationally known as a member of the Senate Watergate Committee.
From 1973 until 1985, Cargo relocated to Lake Oswego, Oregon, with his wife Ida Jo and five children, Veronica, David, Patrick, Elena, and Eamon. He was an unsuccessful candidate for the Republican nomination for State Treasurer in Oregon in 1984.
After returning to New Mexico Cargo won the Republican nomination for Congress, but was badly defeated by the incumbent, Democrat Bill Richardson in 1986. Cargo ran for Mayor of Albuquerque in 1993, but was defeated by Martin Chávez. He tried for a gubernatorial comeback in 1994. Cargo ran a poor fourth (13 percent) in the primary and lost to Gary Johnson, a libertarian Republican. Johnson won the general election, having benefited from 1994 being a heavily Republican year nationwide.
Cargo continues to practice law in Albuquerque. In 2010 he wrote an autobiography titled Lonesome Dave.
Read more about this topic: David F. Cargo
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