New Mexico
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.
Enter your email and we’ll send a secure one-click link to sign in.
KRQE NEWS 13 is provided by Nexstar Media Group, Inc., and uses the My Nexstar sign-in, which works across our media network.
Learn more at nexstar.tv/privacy-policy.
KRQE NEWS 13 is provided by Nexstar Media Group, Inc., and uses the My Nexstar sign-in, which works across our media network.
Nexstar Media Group, Inc. is a leading, diversified media company that produces and distributes engaging local and national news, sports, and entertainment content across its television and digital platforms. The My Nexstar sign-in works across the Nexstar network—including The CW, NewsNation, The Hill, and more. Learn more at nexstar.tv/privacy-policy.
LAS CRUCES, N.M. — An ‘imposter nurse’ in Las Cruces is facing 34 charges after nearly causing the death of a patient and illegally giving medications to patients under 18 years old.
A Doña Ana County grand jury indicted Margarita Gonzalez. She is accused of assuming the identities of nurses in Texas to get hired at four nursing facilities in Las Cruces:
- Village at Northrise
- Las Cruces Wellness and Rehabilitation
- Peak Behavioral Health
- Matrix Home Care
The New Mexico Department of Justice’s Medicaid Fraud and Elder Abuse Bureau investigated and discovered instances where Gonzalez illegally gave injections and dispensed prescriptions, including narcotics to eight inpatient residents under 18 years old.
An investigation also found Gonzalez was also about to allegedly give “an incorrect insulin dose” to a patient that they claim could’ve killed the patient if another nurse hadn’t caught the error.
Several facilities fired Gonzalez over patient safety concerns and an observed lack of knowledge.
“Impersonating a healthcare provider is a reckless and selfish crime that subjects those most vulnerable to risk of serious injury or death,” Attorney General Raúl Torrez said. “I will not tolerate those who risk the safety of patients or cause danger and unnecessary confusion within the healthcare system. These charges should keep anyone attempting to pose as a healthcare provider on notice: we will find you, and we will prosecute you to the fullest extent of the law to protect New Mexicans.”
Gonzalez’s charges include identity theft, nursing without a license, abuse of a resident, distribution of controlled substances to a minor and fraud totaling over $25,000.
If convicted on all counts, Gonzalez could face up to 100 years in prison.
-
South Dakota6 minutes agoHomeschool SD Conference kicks off with free concert Friday at The Monument
-
Tennessee11 minutes agoTennessee bishops push for halt of execution
-
Texas18 minutes ago‘We have great support’: Coach Bucky speaks at Dallas A&M Club event
-
Utah23 minutes agoUtah Royals FC Returns Home to Host Racing Louisville FC Chasing Eight Match Unbeaten Streak | Utah Royals
-
Vermont30 minutes agoSt. Joseph’s Orphanage exhibit opens at Vermont Police Academy
-
Virginia36 minutes agoMore than 300 pounds of marijuana worth $1M seized in Bristol, Virginia State Police says
-
Washington41 minutes agoFederal ‘summer surge’ to target youth crime in DC
-
Wisconsin48 minutes agoWisconsin Olympian hired at Ariens Nordic Center in Brillion