WASHINGTON - Authorities in Albuquerque, New Mexico, said on Monday that a former Republican candidate who lost his bid for a state House seat in November had been arrested in connection with a series of recent shootings at the homes of four Democratic elected officials.

Chief Harold Medina of the Albuquerque Police Department said at a news conference that the former candidate, Solomon Peña, was “the mastermind” behind a conspiracy in which four other men were paid to shoot at the homes of two county commissioners and two state legislators.

Peña, 39, lost the election on Nov 8 in a landslide to incumbent Democrat, Miguel P. Garcia.

Days later, Peña went on Twitter to express support for former President Donald Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign and to say that he had not conceded his own state House race.

Mr Medina said that a SWAT team took Peña into custody on Monday. Police said they planned to charge him with “several state crimes”. It was unclear if Peña had a lawyer.

Police said in a statement that Peña had paid four men cash and “sent text messages with addresses where he wanted them to shoot at the homes”.

Peña accompanied the men to the house of state Senator Linda Lopez on Jan 3 and “attempted to shoot”, but the automatic rifle he was using malfunctioned, police said.

Another man shot more than a dozen rounds from a handgun, police said, including into the bedroom of Ms Lopez’s daughter.

Shell casings found at Ms Lopez’s home matched a handgun that was confiscated after a traffic stop just 40 minutes after the shooting, police said.

The driver, Jose Trujillo, had an unrelated felony arrest warrant, police said. The car, they said, was registered to Peña.

The recent shootings in New Mexico began Dec 4, when someone fired eight rounds at the home of Ms Adriann Barboa, a Bernalillo County commissioner, according to Albuquerque police.

On Dec 8, shots were fired at the home of state Representative Javier Martinez. Three days later, on Dec 11, a shooting targeted the home of another Bernalillo County commissioner, Ms Debbie O’Malley.

Ms O’Malley was limited to two terms and has since left office. Then came the shooting at Mr Lopez’s house in early January.

Authorities had been investigating six shootings that targeted Democratic officials.

Police said Monday that they no longer believed that the shootings in which Peña has been implicated were related to reports of shots being fired near the former campaign office of the state’s attorney general this month and at the law office of a state senator in December.

Mr Gilbert Gallegos Jr., a spokesman for the Albuquerque Police Department, said at the news conference that Peña had visited at least three Bernalillo County commissioners and Ms Lopez, the state senator, at their homes in November after his electoral defeat.

Mr Garcia defeated him decisively, winning more than 73 per cent of the vote.

“He had complaints about his election, felt it was rigged,” Mr Gallegos said of Peña. “He approached all of these commissioners and the senator at their home with paperwork claiming there was fraud involved in those elections.”

Mr Gallegos said the lawmakers were “puzzled and surprised” by the accusations, and that one confrontation led to “quite an argument”.

The shootings occurred shortly afterward, Mr Gallegos said.

“That kind of suggests why they were targeted, perhaps,” he added.

Mr Kyle Hartsock, deputy commander of the Police Department’s homicide unit, said that police “have somebody who is involved inside this conspiracy who is talking to police” .

That person, he said, helped confirm that Peña was at the Jan 3 attack.

Mr Hartsock said that Peña had hired others to carry out at least two of the shootings, and that Peña had texted the addresses of the shootings, in one case just hours before the shooting took place.

The continuing investigation would involve “more warrants and interviewing more persons”, Mr Hartsock said.

“We’re not at the end yet,” he added.

Police said in their statement that search warrants were executed Monday “at the home of two of the men who were allegedly paid” by Peña.

Mayor Tim Keller of Albuquerque said that police had “discovered what we had all feared and what we had suspected.”.

“These shootings were indeed politically motivated,” he said at the news conference. “They were dangerous attacks, not just to these individuals, which is personally the most terrifying for them, but fundamentally to democracy.

“That is why this is so terrible. This type of radicalism is a threat to our nation and has made its way to our doorstep.”

Mr Keller described Peña as a “right-wing, radical election denier” and said that he had done “the worst unimaginable thing you can do when you have a political disagreement, which is turn that to violence. That should never be the case”. NYTIMES