MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Political migration is happening in parts of America. Some conservatives are fleeing blue states for red ones, like California to Idaho, and some liberals are going the other way, Texas to New Mexico. As John Burnett reports, the Land of Enchantment has quietly become a blue refuge in the MAGA red West.
JOHN BURNETT, BYLINE: The immense New Mexico sky is turning pink and purple as the sun sinks behind the Jemez mountains. Inside Nuckolls Brewing in Santa Fe, a group of Texas expats has gathered with a round of pints. They're considering the state they abandoned and the state they now call home.
KENT FUKA: I tell people you could not pay us enough to move back to Texas at this point. The emphasis of fundamental religion just grew and grew and grew in Texas.
NANCY FUKA: I'd lived in Texas most of my life. I was born in Texas and was very proud to be a Texan and never really thought we'd leave. But the political climate became so conservative, it felt oppressive to me.
DONOVAN KOLBLY: Politically, I wasn't that aware of how blue New Mexico was until I moved here.
STEPHANIE BONZEK: I look at New Mexico, which is a poor rural state, and they keep trying. Sorry, I'm going to get teary, but, like, they keep trying to do the right thing.
BURNETT: In order, Kent and Nancy Fuka, a certified quilt judge and a retired venture capitalist, and Donovan Kolbly and Stephanie Bonzek, a software developer and a nurse practitioner. Unusual for a rural state that's dependent on oil and gas, farming and cattle, New Mexico is deep blue. And from the governor to the congressional delegation to the state legislature, women dominate elective office here. In fact, New Mexico has the largest female legislative majority in the country. It all happens here in the Roundhouse.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Welcome to the New Mexico State Capitol Building. This is the fourth state capitol of New Mexico.
BURNETT: As the saying goes, poor New Mexico - so far from heaven, so close to Texas. Its archconservative neighbor to the east, run by Republican men, has outlawed abortion, militarized its border, banned books and is considering a raft of anti-trans bills.
MICHELLE LUJAN GRISHAM: We're going to be a safe haven for reproductive health for women and their families all across America.
BURNETT: Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham, the short-statured, firebrand Democrat, is in her second and last term. She sits on a couch in her Roundhouse office, surrounded by New Mexican art. New Mexico has some of the strongest laws in the nation to guarantee adults and children access to gender-affirming care and to enshrine legal abortion. In fact, Grisham is using state funds to build two reproductive health care clinics that will perform abortions. One is in Las Cruces, a short drive from the Texas border.
GRISHAM: Everyone has the freedom to choose the health care that's right for them, and we don't interfere. We're not going to tell doctors who they can and cannot see. We're not going to tell you where you can and cannot live, who you will or will not be in love with. Those freedoms exist in this state, and I stand, you know, firmly and squarely behind that.
BURNETT: As New Mexico has gotten bluer, Texas has gotten redder. Texas forbids gender transition care for teenagers and allows private citizens to sue abortion providers. Here's Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick in 2021, speaking to an anti-abortion group.
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DAN PATRICK: Any of you in this room could sue a doctor who performs an abortion on a baby with a heartbeat. But since that bill went into effect, we've saved somewhere in the neighborhood of about 150 babies a day because abortion has pretty much stopped in the state of Texas.
(CHEERING)
BURNETT: Or it's moved west - 70% of women who get abortions in New Mexico come from Texas.
AMERICA: I went to Albuquerque today because Texas did outlaw abortion.
BURNETT: Twenty-five-year-old America asked not to use her last name over privacy concerns. The dog groomer from Dallas drove with her partner 10 hours to an abortion clinic in New Mexico's largest city. America says she already lives below the poverty line, has a 10-year-old daughter and cannot afford another mouth to feed.
AMERICA: Texas lawmakers would never care to hear this, but I am a woman of Texas, and it isn't fair that I can't get health care in my state that I have lived in for my whole entire life.
BURNETT: But New Mexico's appeal is a lot more than access to abortion. It's cooler summers, high desert vistas, legal recreational pot and a chill, live-and-let-live attitude. So many Lone Star libs are fleeing extreme summer heat, big city sprawl and Texas MAGA-style politics that some folks have started calling Santa Fe Austin West. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, in 2022 and '23, more Texans moved to New Mexico, almost 34,000, than from any other state. That's a drop in the bucket compared to the 50,000 folks who move to Texas every month. But in a lightly populated state like New Mexico, it can make a difference.
MOE MAESTAS: No question. It's been a 20-year flux of white liberals moving to New Mexico 'cause why not? You're either lucky enough to be born here, like myself, or you're smart enough to move here.
BURNETT: State Senator Moe Maestas is a veteran Democrat from Albuquerque and an 11th-generation New Mexican.
MAESTAS: But those white, liberal folks who move here are, on average, more left than the average Joe Democrat, and so there is those tensions within the local politics.
BURNETT: Case in point, meet Loretta Taylor. She was selling apples and eggs at the Socorro Farmers Market on a recent Saturday.
LORETTA TAYLOR: My dad was a Democrat, so I'm a Democrat. What can I say? (Laughter).
BURNETT: Though she's a die-hard Democrat, Taylor is not happy about the governor using state funds to build abortion clinics.
TAYLOR: That is rubbing me very bad about New Mexico. One's already built in Las Cruces, and she's planning one up north, right? Yeah. No, I don't support the abortion part of the Democratic thing, so...
BURNETT: The New Mexico legislature has been dominated by Democrats for most of the last 80 years. But how long will the blue Land of Enchantment stay that way? Last November, Kamala Harris easily carried New Mexico, but Donald Trump has gained ground in the last three elections, including in Little Texas. That's what they call the barren southeastern corner of the state that shares the oil-rich Permian Basin with West Texas. Republican State Senator Jim Townsend met me for lunch at the Wellhead Restaurant in Artesia. His hometown reveres wildcatters and roughnecks, the way Santa Fe does Spaniards and Pueblo Indians. I asked Townsend, does he wish his state were more like Texas?
JIM TOWNSEND: You can listen to me. I have a lot of Texas in me. But I really wish New Mexico would continue to be New Mexico. And it is not abortion centers. It is not taking away Second Amendment rights. It is not higher taxes.
BURNETT: Townsend thinks the Trump bump is not a fluke, and he says elected state officials are a lot more liberal than most New Mexicans are.
TOWNSEND: There may be some progressives moving into Santa Fe. I had a buddy that used to call it 40 square miles surrounded by reality. And that's really what most people in New Mexico look at Santa Fe.
BURNETT: Blue New Mexicans all across the state are unhappy with the administration in Washington. Aging lefties show up at weekly protests in downtown Albuquerque with sun hats and anti-Trump signs.
UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTERS: (Chanting) Hey hey, ho ho, Donald Trump has got to go. Hey hey, ho ho...
BURNETT: It's hard to say who's native and who's a newcomer out here or where they came from, but it really doesn't matter. New Mexicans are generally welcoming to emigres, with this caveat - with your giant pickups and barbecue and howdy y'alls, just don't Texas our New Mexico. For NPR News, I'm John Burnett in Albuquerque.
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