 Apodaca would later enter the insurance business.In 1965, he was elected to the New Mexico Senate, in which he served for four two-year terms from 1966 to 1974.Apodaca was elected governor of New Mexico as a Democrat in 1974, becoming the first Hispanic governor in the U.S. since 1918, along with neighboring Arizona Governor Raúl Héctor Castro, who was also elected that year.