New Mexico

Trump woos Hispanic voters in last-minute New Mexico visit

Published

1 year ago

October 31, 2024

Trump woos Hispanic voters in last-minute New Mexico visit

Thousands of people watched former president Donald Trump speak Thursday at an airport hangar in Albuquerque, a late visit to a state he is unlikely to win but where his supporters gave him a joyous welcome.

With polls showing New Mexico is unlikely to be in play in the presidential election, the former president urged the crowd to prove the predictions wrong. He hit familiar themes like the border and gas price inflation and enthusiastically praised Hispanic communities.

The rally was only announced on Sunday, and after a few days of scrambling over parking and location, Trump’s supporters had to park far away, get buses, walk and stand in long long lines. It didn’t bother many of them one bit.

“It’s great,” said Jose Hernandez, a small business owner from Albuquerque, who was buying a shirt from a stall selling MAGA hats in every color and gold sneakers.

“There’s a lot of people that are very happy that he’s here. We talked with a lot of people in line and stuff like that. So everybody’s excited.”

Like many people here today, he is a Hispanic New Mexican, a constituency that has traditionally voted Democrat. He switched parties, as did Thomas Hernandez, no relation as far as KUNM is aware, who was standing in line with a Trump flag and two Trump hats.

“I came from a Democratic family, and I was indoctrinated to vote Democrat,” he said. He credits the party with helping his parents work their way out of poverty. “I grew up as a Chicano person in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and I saw the policies that the Democrats had when we were growing up.”

He thinks it is much harder for people to lift themselves up economically now. When asked what the biggest issue is in this election, like many others he said the border and specifically fentanyl smuggling.

“My daughter died of fentanyl,” he said. “And I’ve had multiple family friends that have had incidents of somebody in their family, having overdoses or being addicted to that fentanyl.”

And he blames the current administration.

“The border czar, comrade Kamala, she didn’t do anything for us down there.”

Inside the hangar, as the crowd waited for the main event, they heard from speakers including Myron Lizer, the former Vice President of the Navajo Nation, who struck a note of unity.

“There’s an Indian proverb out there. It says, the left wing and the right wing are of the same bird,” he said.

And the Republican candidate for the state’s most competitive congressional district, Yvette Herrell, spoke. The 2nd Congressional District in the south of the state is nearly 60% Hispanic and she is running against a Mexican-American Democrat, Gabe Vasquez. She touched on regular themes of hers: transgender athletes, border security and immigration.

“When you vote to allow men in girls sports, when you don’t stand up for the parents rights, when you call the wall disrespectful and a waste of money, when you allow to have illegals vote in our elections, not once, twice,” she said.

Noncitizens attempting to vote actually occurs extremely rarely, according to studies from the Brennan Center of Justice and investigations like an audit of voting rolls in Georgia this year.

As the former president arrived, touching down against a backdrop of the craggy Sandia mountains and a perfect blue sky, he told the crowd why he’d come, so close to the election.

“I’m here for one simple reason. I like you very much, and it’s good for my credentials with the Hispanic or Latino community,” he said.

He asked whether people in New Mexico preferred the term Latino or Hispanic, with big cheers for Hispanic.

“First of all, Hispanics love Trump,” he declared, saying they were “entrepreneurial”.

“But you have to turn out the record numbers that we need in order to really demand a better future. And you have to go out. You have to vote. We want to win, win, win.”

He almost acknowledged he is unlikely to win the state

“They all said: Don’t come. I said, why? You can’t win New Mexico. I said, Look, your votes are rigged. We can win New Mexico. We can win New Mexico.”

He made many false claims, including that he had won the state twice before. He did not and New Mexico’s 2022 election was ranked best in the nation by the Elections Performance Index at MIT.

A somber note came with a video of the mother of a 12 year old girl murdered earlier this year in Houston, allegedly by two undocumented men from Venezuela.

“Under Kamala, New Mexico has seen millions of people pour across your section of the southern border,” he said. Customs and Border Protection records about half a million encounters on New Mexico’s border since the beginning of Fiscal Year 2021.

Trump used familiar language — “tough hombres” — to describe immigrants and mentioned the number 13,099 as a number of murderers crossing the border during the last administration. The Department of Homeland Security has said that he is misrepresenting that figure and that it goes back decades.

He also mentioned immigrants flooding towns with deadly drugs, but the majority of people arrested smuggling fentanyl into the country are American citizens, according to reporting from KPBS in California.

Among several Hispanic and other people on the way out, his message had resonated. Lisa Parsons is from an old New Mexican family.

“It’s wonderful that he recognizes us and all cultures, not just one-sided culture, but many cultures, that’s what he’s reaching out to,” she said.

Amid long lines of traffic and closed roads, there were no big protests, but Joel Hernandez from the Party of Socialism and Liberation told KUNM he led about 40 people to demonstrate nearby. They chanted against deportations and against war, and said some Trump supporters yelled slurs at them, but there were no confrontations.

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New Mexico

New Mexico reaction to Trump’s deadline on Iran war

Published

4 hours ago

April 7, 2026

Press Room

New Mexico reaction to Trump’s deadline on Iran war

Sen. Ben Ray Luján says Trump is waging an illegal war

THIS IS KOAT ACTION SEVEN NEWS. WE BEGIN WITH BREAKING NEWS AND THAT BREAKING NEWS IN THE WAR IN IRAQ. IF YOU’RE JUST TUNING IN, PRESIDENT TRUMP SAYING ON TRUTH SOCIAL, HE WILL AGREE TO A TWO WEEK CEASEFIRE ON THE CONDITION THAT IRAN AGREES TO REOPEN THE STRAIT OF HORMUZ. HIS NEW OFFER, COMING HOURS BEFORE HIS DEADLINE FOR IRAN TO OPEN THE STRAIT, THREATENING IF THEY DIDN’T. QUOTE, A WHOLE CIVILIZATION WILL DIE TONIGHT, NEVER TO BE BROUGHT BACK AGAIN. NOW, HE SAYS HE’S HAD CONVERSATIONS WITH THE FIELD MARSHAL AND PRIME MINISTER OF PAKISTAN AGREEING TO HOLD OFF FORCE BEING SENT TONIGHT TO IRAN. HE POSTED THIS. I’LL HOLD OFF THE DESTRUCTIVE FORCE BEING SENT TONIGHT TO IRAN AND SUBJECT TO THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF IRAN, AGREEING TO THE COMPLETE, IMMEDIATE AND SAFE OPENING OF THE STRAIT OF HORMUZ. I AGREE TO SUSPEND THE BOMBING AND ATTACK IRAN FOR A PERIOD OF TWO WEEKS. HE CALLED IT A DOUBLE CEASE FIRE AFTER GETTING A PROPOSAL FROM IRAN AND WORKABLE BASIS ON WHICH TO NEGOTIATE. PROTESTERS AND LAWMAKERS REACTING TO THE PRESIDENT’S EARLIER SOCIAL MEDIA POSTS ABOUT ENDING A CIVILIZATION. IF THE STRAIT OF HORMUZ WAS NOT REOPENED. PRIOR TO THAT TEMPORARY CEASE FIRE DEAL HAS BEEN SUSPENDED. NOW, GETTING REACTION FROM SENATOR LUJAN. YEAH. SENATOR LUJAN, TODAY REACTING TO THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY OF NEW MEXICO CALLING FOR PRESIDENT TRUMP’S IMPEACHMENT. BUT FIRST, PROTESTERS GATHERED IN ALBUQUERQUE THIS MORNING. THE WAR IN IRAQ, IN ALBUQUERQUE, A FAMILIAR SPOT IN FRONT OF KIRTLAND AIR FORCE BASE TUESDAY, WHERE PROTESTERS HAVE BEEN GATHERING. BUT TODAY’S TONE WAS A BIT DIFFERENT. WHAT WOULD MAKE ME HAPPY IS A UNIVERSAL PURGE OF THE WHITE HOUSE AND THE PENTAGON. THERE’S NO REASON TO HAVE THESE WAR CRIMINALS IN OUR SERVICE, OR EVEN IN OUR GENE POOL ANYMORE. THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY OF NEW MEXICO CALLING FOR PRESIDENT TRUMP’S IMPEACHMENT. IN AN EMAIL SENT TO KOAT, U.S. SENATOR BEN RAY LUJAN IN ALBUQUERQUE AND RESPONDING, DO YOU THINK HE SHOULD BE REMOVED FROM OFFICE? PRESIDENT TRUMP, WE’LL SEE WHAT HAPPENS IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, WHICH IS WHERE THERE WOULD BE ANY IMPEACHMENT CONSIDERATION OR HEARINGS. SENATOR LUJAN, REACTING TO THIS SOCIAL MEDIA POST BY TRUMP WHERE HE CALLS FOR ATTACKS ON THE IRANIAN INFRASTRUCTURE, BRIDGES AND POWER PLANTS. IF A DEAL WASN’T REACHED, THERE HAS STILL NOT BEEN A VOTE THAT REPUBLICANS HAVE BROUGHT TO THE SENATE FLOOR, GIVING THE PRESIDENT THE TOOLS THAT ANY PRESIDENT WOULD NEED TO GO TO WAR. AN AUMF THIS PRESIDENT IS GOING AT IT AGAIN, RECKLESSLY. LUJAN FALLING SHORT OF CALLING TRUMP A WAR CRIMINAL. I BELIEVE THE PRESIDENT IS NOT FOLLOWING UNITED STATES LAW. WHEN THE PRESIDENT IS THREATENING THE ELIMINATION OF A CIVILIZATION OF PEOPLE, I WOULD ARGUE THAT THAT IS BREAKING U.S. LAW, FEDERAL LAW, GLOBAL LAW, AS WELL. OKAY. THE REPUBLICAN PARTY OF NEW MEXICO RELEASING THIS STATEMENT TO US JUST A SHORT TIME AGO, SAYING IN PART, MAKE NO MISTAKE, THE WAY PRESIDENT TRUMP HAS DEALT WITH IRAN HAS FUNDAMENTALLY MADE OUR COUNTRY SAFER. AS THE PRESIDENT HAS STATED, OUR MILITARY OBJECTIVES IN IRAN ARE NEARLY FINISHED. AND THE TWO WEEK CEASEFIRE ANNOUNCED TODAY PROVES THAT WE ARE IN TOTAL CONTROL OF THIS CONFLICT. IN THE STUDIO, JOHN POLO, KOAT ACTION SEVEN NEWS TONIGHT AT TEN. OUR WASHINGTON BUREAU WILL HAVE MORE ON THIS BREAKING DEVELOPMEN

New Mexico reaction to Trump’s deadline on Iran war

Sen. Ben Ray Luján says Trump is waging an illegal war

Updated: 7:06 PM MDT Apr 7, 2026

Editorial Standards ⓘ

Protesters gathered Tuesday in front of Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque, a familiar location for demonstrations, as tensions rose following the missed deadline to open the Strait of Hormuz. “What would make me happy is a universal purge of the White House and the Pentagon. There’s no reason to have these war criminals in our service, or even in our gene pool anymore,” one protester said. The Democratic Party of New Mexico called for President Trump’s impeachment in an email sent to KOAT on Tuesday. U.S. Sen. Ben Ray Luján, who was in Albuquerque that day, addressed the issue. “Do you think he should be removed from office?” asked KOAT reporter John Rupolo.”We’ll see what happens in the House of Representatives, which is where there would be any impeachment consideration or hearings,” Luján said. Luján also reacted to a social media post by Trump in which the president called for attacks on infrastructure, bridges, and power plants if a deal was not reached by Tuesday night. “There has still not been a vote that Republicans have brought to the Senate floor, giving the president the tools that any president would need to go to war and a umph. This president is going at it again recklessly,” Luján said. While Luján stopped short of labeling Trump a war criminal, he expressed strong criticism of the president’s actions. “When the president is threatening the elimination of a civilization of people, I would argue that that is breaking U.S. law. Federal law. Global law as well,” Luján said.We reached out to state Republican leaders, but they refused to comment. We also reached out to the New Mexico Republican Party and never heard back.

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. —

Protesters gathered Tuesday in front of Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque, a familiar location for demonstrations, as tensions rose following the missed deadline to open the Strait of Hormuz.

“What would make me happy is a universal purge of the White House and the Pentagon. There’s no reason to have these war criminals in our service, or even in our gene pool anymore,” one protester said.

The Democratic Party of New Mexico called for President Trump’s impeachment in an email sent to KOAT on Tuesday. U.S. Sen. Ben Ray Luján, who was in Albuquerque that day, addressed the issue.

“Do you think he should be removed from office?” asked KOAT reporter John Rupolo.

“We’ll see what happens in the House of Representatives, which is where there would be any impeachment consideration or hearings,” Luján said.

Luján also reacted to a social media post by Trump in which the president called for attacks on infrastructure, bridges, and power plants if a deal was not reached by Tuesday night.

“There has still not been a vote that Republicans have brought to the Senate floor, giving the president the tools that any president would need to go to war and a umph. This president is going at it again recklessly,” Luján said.

While Luján stopped short of labeling Trump a war criminal, he expressed strong criticism of the president’s actions.

“When the president is threatening the elimination of a civilization of people, I would argue that that is breaking U.S. law. Federal law. Global law as well,” Luján said.

We reached out to state Republican leaders, but they refused to comment. We also reached out to the New Mexico Republican Party and never heard back.

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New Mexico

Political divisions fuel push to have Texas annex part of New Mexico

Published

16 hours ago

April 7, 2026

Press Room

Political divisions fuel push to have Texas annex part of New Mexico

WASHINGTON — Everything is bigger in Texas, but could the state get even larger? Texas lawmakers have begun exploring whether to annex a part of neighboring New Mexico, where many residents say they would prefer to join the Lone Star State. However, key officials in New Mexico are dismissing the idea.

What You Need To Know

Texas House Speaker Dustin Burrows, R-Lubbock, directed the governmental oversight committee to study the constitutional and economic implications of adding a couple of counties in southeast New Mexico to Texas

The Republican state lawmakers in Lea and Roosevelt counties in New Mexico, just west of Lubbock, have expressed an interest in leaving their state

Legal experts said under the U.S. Constitution, not only would New Mexico and Texas need to agree on annexation, but Congress as well

State Rep. Carl Tepper, R-Lubbock, told Spectrum News that Texans have a lot in common culturally with those from the eastern portion of New Mexico. He said hospitals, companies and universities in his community have many people from there.

“These are oil producers. They’re cattlemen. They’re farmers. They are fiercely independent. They don’t rely on government. Texas is a smaller government state, less regulations, less taxes,” Tepper said. “They feel much closer to us than they do the government in Santa Fe.”

And that is why he believes the Texas Legislature should explore annexing a part of New Mexico.

Texas House Speaker Dustin Burrows, R-Lubbock, directed the governmental oversight committee to study the constitutional and economic implications of adding a couple of counties in southeast New Mexico to Texas. The Republican state lawmakers in Lea and Roosevelt counties in New Mexico, just west of Lubbock, have expressed an interest in leaving their state.

In a statement to Spectrum News, Burrows said, in part, “This conversation is ultimately about culture, opportunity, and the right to choose a path that reflects the shared values of the Permian and Delaware basins.”

Tepper agreed. He said it would be “historic” if the Republican-led Legislature could pull it off.

“There’s a vast amount of conservative voters out there. People who are conservative economically, with their faith, and are very frustrated with the core urban high-density areas and the voters there ruling over vast portions of the geographic areas of these states,” Tepper said.

“If we could find a way to essentially liberate these New Mexico counties into Texas, I think we would also be cutting a path for other counties that are frustrated with their centralized governments being overbearing in other states and bringing them over to more conservative states,” Tepper continued.

New Mexico Democrats are dismissing the idea. A spokesperson for the governor reportedly called it “not serious,” and the New Mexico House speaker said on social media, “Dude, over my dead body, man. No way, no way.”

Legal experts said under the U.S. Constitution, not only would New Mexico and Texas need to agree on annexation, but Congress as well.

“It’s very, very hard to imagine winning that trifecta,” said Sanford Levinson, a professor at the University of Texas School of Law. “It’s hard for me to imagine that New Mexico would be delighted to lose this population, even if the Democrats who run the state probably have no love lost for the Republicans who want to leave.”

Levinson said one big reason the idea is a non-starter is that because of the population change under the new borders, New Mexico would likely lose a congressional seat and Texas would gain one.

He added that conservatives in Oregon and Illinois are also looking at leaving their states.

“The polarization that we talk so much about is found as much within states as among states and the United States, that if you look at practically any state in the union, you find these sharp divisions,” Levinson said.

And despite the sharp divisions, new state lines are hard to draw.

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New Mexico

Record heat, drought prompts early statewide fire restrictions – New Mexico Political Report

Published

1 day ago

April 6, 2026

Press Room

Record heat, drought prompts early statewide fire restrictions – New Mexico Political Report

Hot dry summer calls for fire caution:

Those whose outdoor plans include fires will need to review updated rules to stay in compliance with state law. The New Mexico Forestry Division is enacting statewide fire restrictions in an effort to reduce the risk of wildfire starts.

The new restrictions taking effect today, April 6, apply to all “non-federal, non-Tribal and non-municipal lands in New Mexico”:

Prohibited:

Flaring of gas related to oil and gas production
Smoking
Fireworks
Campfires
Prescribed, open, agricultural and/or debris burning

The agency cited unseasonably hot weather and dry fuel conditions in its announcement Monday morning. Erin Taylor, acting secretary of the New Mexico Energy, Minerals, and Natural Resources Department, said nine of 10 wildfires in the state are caused by humans, and therefore can be prevented.

“Fire restrictions are about individual actions that protect our communities as a whole,” Taylor said in a news release. “We’re asking that every resident and every visitor take extra precautions during a particularly risky wildfire season.”

The National Weather Service’s seasonal outlook shows persistent drought for most of New Mexico through June. The release states that the annual monsoon season is expected to arrive on time in July, potentially bringing above-average precipitation.

These restrictions will remain in place until rescinded. Exceptions are allowed for certain prohibited actions in specific cases or when specific conditions are met, the release states, and the state forester may allow additional exceptions upon receiving a written request.

“If monsoon rains are productive, the state could see these restrictions lifted,” the release states. “However, high temperatures are predicted to persist, and high fuel loads will continue to pose a risk across the state.”

Rodd Cayton is a senior reporter with nm.news covering local news and government as a local reporting fellow with NM Reports.
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