Donald Trump's approval rating sags in New Mexico amid high gas prices, global conflicts - Dan Boyd, Albuquerque Journal
New Mexico voters have never fully embraced Donald Trump, but the president’s approval rating in the state has hit new lows as he nears the midway point of his second term.
Just 32% of likely voters surveyed in a new Journal Poll said they approve of the job Trump is doing as president, while 61% expressed disapproval.
An overwhelming majority of Democrats — roughly 93% of those surveyed — said they did not approve of Trump’s job performance, while 72% of independent voters also expressed disapproval. In contrast, only 18% of independents gave the president a thumbs up.
Among Republicans, 72% said they approved of Trump’s performance as president, while 16% expressed disapproval. The remaining Republicans surveyed were undecided or would not share their assessment.
While still representing strong support of GOP voters, that figure could show some concerns among Republican voters about Trump’s handling of the economy and the U.S.-Iran war, said Brian Sanderoff, the president of Albuquerque-based Research & Polling Inc., which conducted the poll.
“The halo is not shining as brightly even among Republicans,” Sanderoff said.
The ongoing conflict in the Middle East has led to stubbornly high gas prices in New Mexico and around the nation. The price hike has prompted a political debate at the Roundhouse, as commuters are having to pay more at the pump even as the state is on track for an eye-opening revenue windfall.
Meanwhile, Trump’s approval rating has also declined nationally amid trade wars with other countries and high everyday costs for consumers.
Sanderoff said that since New Mexico has become a blue-leaning state, the Republican president’s approval rating tends to be a few points lower here in comparison to his national average job performance rating.
Trump, who is in his second stint in the White House, has lost in New Mexico in all three of his campaigns for president — in 2016, 2020 and 2024 — despite holding several campaign stops in the state.
His current approval rating is lower than his 39% approval rating in New Mexico in September 2020, just two months before he was defeated by former President Joe Biden in that year’s election.
But Trump made inroads in the state in the 2024 election, compared to previous cycles, losing to Democrat Kamala Harris by 6 percentage points after gaining more support in counties with large Native American and Hispanic populations.
The new Journal Poll found those electoral gains have largely evaporated, however, as 65% of Hispanic voters surveyed said they disapproved of Trump’s performance as president. Just 27% of Hispanic voters expressed approval.
Voter views vary by age, region
New Mexico voters’ views of Trump’s job performance varied by voters’ age, among other factors.
Among voters under age 50, only 23% expressed approval of Trump’s handling of the presidency, while 66% expressed disapproval.
Older voters, in contrast, were more likely to support Trump’s job performance, as 38% of voters age 50 or older approved of his job performance and 58% said they did not approve.
“He’s still doing better among the groups he’s always done better with,” said Sanderoff, referring specifically to Republican voters, voters without a college degree and men.
As for regional differences, Trump’s popularity in New Mexico was highest in largely rural parts of the state, including northwest New Mexico and the state’s traditionally conservative east side, the Journal Poll found.
In contrast, only 26% of voters in the Albuquerque metro area said they approved of Trump’s job performance, while 69% said they disapproved.
Those approval ratings were largely an inverse from voters’ views of outgoing New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, a Democrat who received higher marks from voters in urban areas than those in more rural parts of the state.
Methodology
The Journal Poll was conducted from Aug. 21 through Aug. 28. It is based on a statewide random sample of 516 voters who cast ballots in the 2022 and/or 2024 general elections, and a sample of adults who registered to vote since January 2025 and who said they are likely to vote in the upcoming election.
The total sample of 516 voters has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.3 percentage points. The margin of error grows for subsamples.
The sample was stratified by race/ethnicity and county and weighted by party affiliation, gender and education level based on traditional voting patterns in New Mexico general elections, to ensure a more representative sample.
All interviews were conducted by live, professional interviewers based in Albuquerque, with multiple callbacks to households that did not initially answer the phone.
Both cellphone numbers (96%) and landlines (4%) of likely general election voters were used.
APD places 6 officers on leave in DWI scandal - Nakayla McClelland, Albuquerque Journal
Six officers with the Albuquerque Police Department have been placed on leave as part of an ongoing investigation into adecades-long scheme involving a defense attorney paying law enforcement officers in an effort to get DWI cases dismissed.
Gilbert Gallegos, spokesperson for APD, said Monday that the agency is doing an internal investigation into the six officers, who were not named Monday afternoon.
“We are not releasing the names at this time,” Gallegos said in an email to the Journal. “The overall investigation is still ongoing. These six officers have not yet been interviewed.”
APD created an Internal Affairs Task Force in January 2024 to investigate alleged misconduct by former or current officers. Fourteen officers have since been fired, resigned or retired during the internal investigation, Gallegos said.
The FBI is leading a separate investigation into allegations of illegal conduct. The six officers have not been charged in that case.
Since the scandal came to light, more than a dozen law enforcement officers have been fired or placed on leave, including nine APD officers who have pleaded guilty in the FBI’s investigation.
At least three APD officers’ homes were raided by the FBI during the investigation.
Two lawyers, a paralegal, an officer with theNew Mexico State Police and deputies with the Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office, have also been implicated.
Officers worked with Albuquerque attorney Thomas Clear III in a criminal racketeering enterprise that paid off officers to help get DWI cases dismissed, according to previous Journal reporting.
Police officers would intentionally fail to appear at required court hearings, withhold evidence or fail to file court paperwork for DWI offenders — some of whom were aware of the scheme and others who were not — who hired Clear.
Clear said during in his plea agreement that the scheme dated back to 1995.
“Under this scheme, I would then appear at the (Motor Vehicle Division) administrative hearings and the criminal case settings on behalf of the DWI offender and would move to dismiss the proceedings,” Clear wrote in the plea agreement.
Prior Journal reporting also states that the 2nd Judicial District Attorney’s Office has dismissed more than 260 DWI cases linked to the federal cases.
Clear and his paralegal and co-conspirator Ricardo Mendez entered guilty pleas on charges of racketeering, among other federal charges.
Clear faces 130 years in prison but no one who has pleaded guilty in the case has been sentenced.
New Mexico officials say 89,000 residents may lose coverage under Medicaid work requirements - Patrick Lohmann, Source New Mexico
Upcoming work requirements contained in the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” could mean that roughly one-tenth of all New Mexico Medicaid recipients lose their coverage, leaders of state agencies said in a virtualnews conference Monday.
Beginning in January, the new law requires that some Medicaid recipients aged 19 to 64 work, volunteer or attend school or job training 80 hours a month to continue receiving coverage.
To raise awareness about the change, more than 230,000 New Mexicans will soon receive turquoise envelopes in the mail that lay out the new requirements, as well as connect Medicaid recipients to state resources designed to help them stay covered, state leaders said.
Still, Health Care Authority officials predict that roughly89,000 Medicaid recipients will lose coverage due to those requirements.
Department of Workforce Solutions Secretary Sarita Nair said the state offers an array of services to job seekers. She pointed to the 24 America’s Jobs centers across the state, as well as theNew Mexico Jobs website, as resources available to those who risk losing coverage.
“You don’t have to navigate that process alone. You don’t have to know exactly what career you’re looking for before you walk through our doors,” Nair said. “That’s what we’re here for — to help you figure that out and to provide you with the tools to succeed.”
More than 825,000 New Mexicans receive Medicaid in New Mexico, according to the Health Care Authority.
Even if they met the work requirements, roughly 2,300 immigrants may lose eligibility due to changes in the law impacting some categories of immigrants. Moreover, the number of residents losing coverage could grow to more than 100,000 due to a new requirement that recipients affirm eligibility every six months versus annually.
Calculating the total number of Medicaid recipients projected to lose coverage is difficult, officials said, because the recipients may lose eligibility for two or more of the above reasons.
Still, Health Care Authority Kari Armijo said that the agency is doing all it can to prevent those coverage reductions and urged recipients to open the turquoise envelopes and reach out to her office. She stressed that simply receiving the letter does not mean that a recipient lost coverage.
“We do recognize, after having gone through all of those complicated changes, that these federal changes are really complex,” she said. “We’re not expecting our customers to figure this out on their own.”
Downwinders advocate Tina Cordova calls for nuclear disarmament in United Nations speech - Patrick Lohmann, Source New Mexico
Tina Cordova, founder of theTularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium, addressed the United Nations General Assembly on Monday in hopes of convincing global leaders to stop nuclear weapons tests like the one that sickened generations of her family in New Mexico.
The United Nations commemorated the International Day against Nuclear Tests, which is Aug. 31, with a series of speeches decrying the human and environmental impacts of nuclear weapons testing.
Cordova spoke at the UN headquarters in New York City on the invitation of UN General Assembly President Annalena Baerbock. Baerbock said in a news release that she invited Cordova to “raise awareness about the effects of nuclear weapons tests explosions or any other nuclear explosions and the need for their cessation as one of the means of achieving the goal of a nuclear-weapon-free world.”
Cordova,in her speech, recounted the 1945 Trinity Test that she said marked “the beginning of the end for tens of thousands of people that we’ve documented, including babies that died in record numbers in the year after Trinity.”
Cordova, who founded the consortium more than 20 years ago to advocate for compensation for New Mexico’s downwinders, did not immediately respond to Source NM’s request for comment Monday morning. But, in a news release Aug. 27, she called the speech before global leaders “an honor of a lifetime.”
In her speech, she referenced the2025 congressional expansion of the Radiation and Exposure Compensation Act, which included downwinders and some New Mexico uranium miners, as the first-ever acknowledgement of New Mexicans’ “sacrifice and their suffering.” Members of Congress arecurrently working on legislation that would further expand RECA to cover additional groups and radiation-linked cancers.
But Cordova said compensation for past harms is not enough, and urged the leaders to remember the Trinity Test 81 years ago as reason to fully abolish nuclear weapons.
“It’s time we set our families, our children and our grandchildren free from nuclear threat,” she said. “We must commit ourselves to a world without nuclear testing, a world without nuclear weapons.”
Shiprock alumnus, first Navajo to sign NFL contract, is free agent - KJZZ and KUNM staff reports
Football fans across the Southwest are wondering where Shiprock High School alumnus Shiyazh Pete might play this season.
Pete is a rookie offensive lineman. He was the first member of the Navajo Nation ever to sign a National Football League contract.
Pete enjoyed some nationwide attention a couple of weeks ago following a late August preseason Dallas Cowboys game against the Arizona Cardinals.
Thousands of fans from Navajo country made the trip to Arizona, to cheer for Pete, who was playing for Dallas.
After the game, Pete gave arousing locker room speech to his teammates that went viral on social media.
But Dallas cut Pete from the team on Sunday.
The next couple of weeks should determine whether Pete finds a spot with another NFL team.
Pete, who is of Dine and Salish ancestry, played college football at New Mexico State before transferring to Kentucky for his senior year.
GOP candidate seeks invitation to Domenici policy conference - Algernon D’Ammassa, Albuquerque Journal
The Republican Party of New Mexico and GOP Senate candidate Larry Marker of Roswell claim that New Mexico State University’s upcoming Domenici Public Policy Conference has unfairly excluded Marker while giving the incumbent, U.S. Sen. Ben Ray Luján, a spotlight.
“NMSU gave (Luján) the single most prominent speaking slot of the entire conference — a solo keynote lunch address on September 9, with no opposing voice on the stage, the schedule, or the invitation list,” the party argued in a news release last week.
Marker, who won the party’s nomination after a write-in campaign during the primaries, aims to be the first Republican elected to the U.S. Senate in New Mexico since Pete Domenici, who founded the conference in 2008.
Domenici served in the Senate from 1973 to 2009, when he retired. He was succeeded by Democrat Tom Udall.
The two-day event features two keynote speakers on separate days. On Sept. 8, former Republican congresswoman Heather Wilson, now president of University of Texas at El Paso, is slated to speak, with Luján addressing the conference the next day among other presenters.
While the focus is on public policy, the agenda on Sept. 9 also features candidates in the November elections. These include Republican gubernatorial candidate Gregg Hull, with Democratic Lt. Gov. candidate Stephanie Garcia Richard invited to participate as a substitute for Hull’s rival, Deb Haaland. Also scheduled are U.S. Rep. Gabe Vasquez, D-N.M., and his Republican challenger, Greg Cunningham.
In an interview, Marker told the Journal the conference should convert Luján’s keynote to a debate between the candidates. If given a speaking slot, Marker said he would likely focus on Social Security and the national debt.
“I'm not sure why NMSU would choose to completely ignore me,” Marker said. “The citizens of New Mexico, the voters in particular, have a right to a bipartisan forum.”
NMSU responded through a spokesperson that Wilson and Luján were lined up as keynote speakers “months before New Mexico’s primary election” on June 2. And when Marker entered the field late, the conference’s organizing committee “chose to proceed with the strong bipartisan lineup that was already secured,” the university said.
The committee is led by Garrey Carruthers, a former NMSU chancellor, New Mexico’s governor from 1987 to 1991, and a past Republican Party chair.
“The Domenici Public Policy Conference has always aimed to be inclusive of opposing viewpoints, and while we understand the perception raised by the Republican Party of New Mexico, this situation was a result of the unusual timing of this candidate’s entry into the race,” the university stated.
Marker argued that giving Luján a prime speaking slot without including his challenger is “putting a thumb on the scale.” He added, “If they needed a United States Senator from New Mexico … they could have invited Martin Heinrich. He’s not up for election.”
Heinrich, a Democrat, was elected to his third six-year term in 2024.
“Agenda timeframes change all of the time, and they’ve had three months to adjust the time slots,” Leticia Muñoz, the party’s executive director, told the Journal. “The Republican Party of New Mexico is asking that the Pete Domenici organization make this right by either having … Heinrich replace Ben Ray Luján or invite … Marker, so that there is political parity.”
Federal agency removes New World Screwworm infested zone in New Mexico – Jeanette DeDios, KUNM News
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service has officially released the only infested zone in New Mexico due to New World screwworm.
In a press release, New Mexico was able to pass all requirements outlined in the federal agency's response playbook for zone release. No additional cases have been detected in the state.
On June 7th, New Mexico discovered its first and only case of screwworm in a dog. State officials quickly responded by creating an infested zone, surveilling wildlife, and inspecting domestic animals in the area.
APHIS and New Mexico agriculture officials said they will work together to ensure fly trapping and wildlife surveillance continue in the state to monitor any future risk of screwworm.
