A view of Santa Fe from the Cross of the Martyrs monument in Santa Fe, New Mexico. So many Texans have fled to New Mexico’s capital that some people are calling it “Austin West”.
Adria Malcolm/for NPR
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Adria Malcolm/for NPR
SANTA FE, N.M. — The solar is sinking behind the Jemez Mountains as a gaggle of Texas expats gathers with their pint glasses inside a Santa Fe brewpub to contemplate the state they deserted, and the state they now name residence.
“I used to be very proud to be a Texan and by no means actually thought we might go away, however the political local weather turned so conservative it felt oppressive to me,” says Nancy Fuka, a licensed quilt decide. Her husband, Kent, a retired enterprise capitalist, provides, “You could not pay us sufficient to maneuver again to Texas at this level. The emphasis of elementary faith simply grew and grew.”
Kent and Nancy Fuka pose for a portrait inside Nuckolls Brewing Firm in Santa Fe, New Mexico. “You could not pay us sufficient to maneuver again to Texas at this level,” says Kent.
Adria Malcolm/for NPR
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Adria Malcolm/for NPR
One other couple chimes in.
“Politically, I wasn’t that conscious of how blue New Mexico was till I moved right here,” says Donovan Kolbly, a software program developer.
“I have a look at New Mexico, which is a poor, rural state — sorry, I am gonna get teary,” says his companion, Stephanie Bonzek, a household nurse practitioner, choking up a bit, “however they maintain making an attempt to do the fitting factor!”
Stephanie Bonzek and companion Donovan Kolby pose for a portrait inside Nuckolls Brewing Firm in Santa Fe on April 9. Bonzek says they moved to New Mexico as a result of the state is “making an attempt to do the fitting factor.”
Adria Malcolm for NPR
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Adria Malcolm for NPR
In polarized America, individuals are sorting themselves. Conservatives are fleeing California, as an example, for Idaho and Texas. And a few Texas liberals are on the lookout for an exit.
The Land of Enchantment has quietly grow to be a blue refuge within the MAGA crimson West. New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, a diminutive, firebrand Democrat now in her second and final time period, has significantly welcomed refugees from Texas: ladies in search of abortions, households wanting to guard trans youngsters, docs in search of a freer medical surroundings, and disconsolate liberals.
“Persons are in search of out states within the West the place the skies are extremely blue,” says Grisham, 65, in an interview in her Santa Fe workplace. “We have 4 seasons, pleasant individuals, free faculty, free common pre-Ok. … And we’ll be a protected haven for reproductive well being for ladies and their households all throughout America.”
So many Lone Star liberals are fleeing excessive summer season warmth, big-city sprawl and Texas MAGA-style politics that some people have began calling Santa Fe “Austin West”.
In response to the U.S. Census Bureau, in 2022 and ’23, extra Texans moved to New Mexico—virtually 34,000—than from another state.
The official Texas response — meh. Final summer season, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, reacted to Gov. Grisham making an attempt to lure Texas docs to New Mexico: “Folks and companies vote with their toes, and regularly they’re selecting to maneuver to Texas greater than another state within the nation.”
Certainly, 34,000 Texas exiles over two years is a drop within the bucket in comparison with the 50,000 individuals who transfer to Texas each month.
And within the spirit of don’t-let-the-door-hit-you-on-the-way-out, just a few years in the past there was a billboard within the Texas panhandle beside the interstate heading into New Mexico: “Liberals, Please proceed on I-40 till you could have left our GREAT STATE OF TEXAS.”
New Mexico authorities is deep blue, which is uncommon for a rural state depending on oil and gasoline, farming and cattle. And, from the governor, to the congressional delegation, to the state legislature, ladies dominate elective workplace. In truth, New Mexico has the most important feminine legislative majority within the nation.
New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, who has earmarked state cash for 2 abortion clinics, poses for a portrait in her workplace contained in the New Mexico State Capitol, also referred to as the Roundhouse, in Santa Fe.
Adria Malcolm/for NPR
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Adria Malcolm/for NPR
New Mexico has handed a few of the strongest legal guidelines within the nation to assure adults and kids entry to gender-affirming care, to guard LGBTQ+ people and to enshrine authorized abortion. In truth, Grisham is utilizing state funds to construct two reproductive well being care clinics that can carry out abortions. One is in Las Cruces, a brief drive from the Texas border.
“Everybody has the liberty to decide on the well being care that is proper for them, and we do not intervene,” Grisham says. “We’re not going to inform docs who they will and can’t see. We’re not going to inform you the place you may and can’t reside, who you’ll or won’t be in love with. These freedoms exist on this state and I stand firmly and squarely behind that.”
However because the saying goes: Poor New Mexico. So removed from heaven, so near Texas.
Undoubtedly not Texas
The outside of the New Mexico State Capitol, in Santa Fe.
Adria Malcolm/for NPR
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Adria Malcolm/for NPR
Its archconservative neighbor to the east, run by Republican males, has outlawed abortion by permitting personal residents to sue abortion suppliers, militarized its southern border, banned books and forbidden gender-affirming care for minors, and is contemplating a raft of anti-trans payments.
“Gov. Grisham has reveled in the truth that we’re a extra Democratic state than Texas,” says Fred Nathan, govt director of Suppose New Mexico, a Santa Fe nonprofit. “I feel she matches our state in the identical method Gov. Greg Abbott matches Texas, and there appears to be fairly a rivalry there.”
Final August, Grisham boldly marketed in main Texas cities to persuade Texas OB-GYNs to relocate to New Mexico to have the ability to observe freely. “This ain’t Texas,” she tweeted. State officers say there’ve solely been a handful of takers due to the excessive price of medical malpractice insurance coverage in New Mexico.
Fred Nathan Jr., the founder and govt director of Suppose New Mexico, poses for a portrait exterior his workplace in Santa Fe. He says Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham “has reveled in the truth that we’re extra Democratic state than Texas.”
Adria Malcolm/for NPR
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Adria Malcolm/for NPR
In September, when Abbott ordered the Texas Nationwide Guard to put in razor wire alongside the Rio Grande dealing with New Mexico, Grisham shot again: “Gov. Abbott appears to be pushing to make Texas its personal nation with out regard for his neighbors.”
“It is not honest that I am unable to get well being care”
New Mexico has grow to be an abortion sanctuary state within the inside West, together with Colorado, which additionally votes Democratic. In 2023, 70% of girls who acquired abortions in New Mexico got here from Texas.
“Yea, I went to Albuquerque as we speak as a result of Texas did outlaw abortion,” says 25-year-old America, a canine groomer from Dallas, in a cellphone interview, who requested to omit her final identify due to privateness considerations. She drove 10 hours along with her companion to an abortion clinic in New Mexico’s largest metropolis. Nonprofits helped with transportation and the process. America says she has a 10-year-old daughter, already lives beneath the poverty line, and can’t afford one other mouth to feed.
“Texas lawmakers would by no means care to listen to this,” says America, “however I’m a girl of Texas and it is not honest that I am unable to get well being care in my state that I’ve lived in for my complete total life.”
Dr. Eve Espey, distinguished professor of OB-GYN on the College of New Mexico, says her state desires to be a refuge for ladies from crimson states.
John Burnett/for NPR
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John Burnett/for NPR
“We wish to strike a steadiness between ensuring that we’re caring for our personal peoples’ wants, and likewise being a refuge for individuals from Texas and Oklahoma,” says Dr. Eve Espey, distinguished professor within the Division of OB-GYN on the College of New Mexico.
New Mexico is also referred to as one of the vital queer-friendly locations within the nation.
“New Mexico is exclusive,” says Rachelle Vega. The nurse practitioner moved from Austin to Santa Fe 4 years in the past, partly, she says, to reside in a extra welcoming surroundings for her two grownup trans youngsters. “There’s this sense of reside and let reside that’s pervasive.”
All that is taking place in a state the place the Catholic Church — which formally rejects abortion and transgenderism — is a robust component of New Mexico’s identification.
“We’re a Catholic state. I am Catholic,” says Rep. Teresa Leger-Fernandez, the congresswoman from Northern New Mexico. “However what we are saying right here is {that a} well being care resolution is one thing you’ll make in session with your personal religion, your personal familia and your personal physician.”
Rep. Teresa Leger-Fernandez, who represents northern New Mexico, says that even in a Catholic state like theirs, well being care selections must be a non-public matter.
John Burnett/for NPR
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John Burnett/for NPR
State Sen. Antonio “Moe” Maestas is a veteran Democrat and an Eleventh-generation New Mexican. He likes to level out that Santa Fe was already a European settlement when the Mayflower pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock.
“Particular person rights are crucial to New Mexicans, like, do not inform me learn how to reside,” Maestas says. “It’s important to perceive we have been the farthest outpost of the Spanish Empire. You got here to New Mexico to be left alone. In order that sentiment resonates as we speak.”
New Mexico’s attraction is far broader than entry to abortion. The state is famend for cooler summers, cultural richness, high-desert vistas, huge stretches of public land, authorized leisure pot and the aforementioned live-and-let-live angle.
Austin West and Little Texas
Whereas the arrival of so many politically dedicated newcomers is probably not spectacular numerically, they will make a distinction in a evenly populated state like New Mexico, says Moe Maestas.
“No query. It has been a 20-year inflow of white liberals transferring to New Mexico as a result of, why not?” says Maestas. “You are both fortunate sufficient to be born right here, like myself, otherwise you’re good sufficient to maneuver right here.”
Locals complain about newly arrived Texans and Californians driving up actual property costs in Santa Fe and Taos.
“A variety of the individuals who transfer right here shortly grow to be concerned locally, they’re fantastic volunteers in our non-profits,” says Rep. Leger-Fernandez, “however the affect on the price of housing inventory is one thing we have to deal with.”
Maestas says many Anglo liberals who transfer to New Mexico — the nation’s most closely Hispanic state — are extra progressive than the common Democrat.
“I am very grateful to all of the liberal components who’ve moved to New Mexico,” he says, “however they’ve to know Chicanos like myself, we turned Democrats not as a result of we’re ideologically left, however as a result of our mother and father have been Democrats. And so there may be these tensions throughout the native politics.”
His statement was borne out one current Saturday in a go to to the Socorro Farmers Market, about an hour south of Albuquerque.
“My dad was a Democrat so I am a Democrat, what can I say?” says Loretta Taylor, who was promoting homegrown apples and yard eggs. Although she’s a diehard Democrat, Taylor will not be pleased concerning the governor utilizing state funds to construct abortion clinics.
“That’s rubbing me very dangerous about New Mexico,” she continues. “One’s already in-built Las Cruces and she or he’s deliberate one up north, proper? No, I do not help the abortion a part of the Democratic factor.”
The New Mexico legislature has been dominated by Democrats for many of the final 80 years. However how lengthy the blue Land of Enchantment will keep that method is anyone’s guess. Final November Kamala Harris simply carried New Mexico, however Donald Trump has gained floor within the final three presidential elections, together with in “Little Texas.” That is what they name the barren, southeastern nook of the state that shares the oil-rich Permian Basin with West Texas.
Extra New Mexico MAGAs
Republican state Sen. Jim Townsend is from the town of Artesia, which celebrates wildcatters and roughnecks the best way Santa Fe does Spaniards and Pueblo Indians. Does he want his state have been extra like Texas?
“I actually want New Mexico would proceed to be New Mexico,” he replies, over a salad on the Wellhead restaurant. “And it isn’t abortion facilities. It isn’t taking away Second Modification rights. It isn’t greater taxes.”
Townsend thinks that the Trump bump will not be a fluke and that Democrats in state workplace are much more liberal than most of their constituents.
“There could also be some progressives transferring into Santa Fe. I had a buddy that used to name it 40 sq. miles surrounded by actuality. And that is actually what most individuals in New Mexico have a look at Santa Fe.”
The Texas/New Mexico political feud doesn’t prolong to economics. New Mexico depends on Texas skiers for tourism {dollars}, and on Texas corporations and oilfield staff for a lot of its oil and gasoline manufacturing.
Protesters (left to proper) Celia Hulton, David Receconi, Richard People and Carol Norris display exterior the New Mexico State Capitol in Santa Fe on April 9. Norris based the protest group, Resist-Relaxation-Repeat, two months in the past.
Adria Malcolm/for NPR
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Adria Malcolm/for NPR
Each Wednesday, anti-Trump protesters in Santa Fe end up in entrance of the state capital, regardless of it being a hive of Democrats, to rail towards the forty seventh president. The ringleader is Carol Norris, a psychotherapist and longtime activist who says she fled Dallas many years in the past.
“Rights are being eviscerated nationwide, however Texas is on the vanguard,” Norris says, as she and a few buddies pack up their indicators and bullhorns. If Texans wish to relocate, as she did, she says, “I completely perceive that sentiment, so long as the Texans can honor and respect the place they’re.”
In different phrases, Norris provides, “Do not allow them to Texas our New Mexico, dammit.”
