{"id":66478,"date":"2019-09-17T16:27:51","date_gmt":"2019-09-17T22:27:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/trump-vows-to-win-most-hispanic-state-in-2020-at-rally\/"},"modified":"2019-09-17T22:27:51","modified_gmt":"2019-09-17T22:27:51","slug":"trump-vows-to-win-most-hispanic-state-in-2020-at-rally","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/trump-vows-to-win-most-hispanic-state-in-2020-at-rally\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump vows to win most-Hispanic state in 2020 at rally"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"People
People stand in line outside the Santa Ana Star Center arena awaiting the start of President Donald Trump\u2019s rally in Rio Rancho, New Mexico, on Monday. Officials with Trump\u2019s campaign said they are working to win the support of more voters in the traditionally Democratic state ahead of the 2020 election.<\/span>Russell Contreras\/Associated Press<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Trump supporters lined the highway to wave on the president as he arrived to a packed arena in conservative-leaning Rio Rancho, in a state where nearly half of the 2.1 million residents identify themselves as Hispanic or Latino \u2013 the highest ratio in the nation, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Elected Democrats led a counter-rally in adjacent Albuquerque amid a gaping ideological divide over immigration policy, gun control, abortion and other issues.<\/p>\n

Vowing to win the New Mexico vote next year, Trump heralded surging oil production in New Mexico, increased local wages and decreasing unemployment nationwide among Hispanics.<\/p>\n

New Mexico still has the third-highest unemployment rate among states and the highest rates of poverty in the American West.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou all look much better than you did three years ago. \u2026 You\u2019re doing better than any other state,\u201d Trump said. \u201cHow do I lose New Mexico?\u201d<\/p>\n

Many Hispanic Americans, Trump insisted, support his plans for a border wall.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey don\u2019t want criminals coming across the border, they don\u2019t want people taking their jobs. \u2026 They want the wall.\u201d<\/p>\n

New Mexico is among the states that Trump lost in 2016 and wants to win in 2020. It provides a test of his appeal among Hispanics and residents near the border who have a stake in his immigration policies.<\/p>\n

At a Democrat-led rally near downtown Albuquerque, a four hour drive from the Mexico border, U.S. Rep. Debra Haaland described Trump as misogynistic and ego-driven.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to fight like hell to make sure he loses New Mexico,\u201d she said. \u201cWe can roll back Trump and we can roll back his policies and we can win New Mexico in 2020.\u201d<\/p>\n

Awaiting Trump\u2019s arrival outside the Rio Rancho arena, 55-year-old Skeeter Trent said she believed the president could flip the state where Republicans haven\u2019t won a presidential vote since George W. Bush\u2019s re-election in 2004.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that it\u2019s great that Trump is coming out to New Mexico, in small town America,\u201d Trent said.<\/p>\n

With the arena full, thousands of people were still outside as the president arrived.<\/p>\n

She expects his visit to spark excitement in New Mexico and help other GOP candidates seeking to succeed Democratic Sen. Tom Udall as he retires and to fill an open House seat as U.S. Rep. Ben Ray Luj\u00e1n seeks the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate.<\/p>\n

Dianna Arvizu \u2013 an El Paso, Texas-native who now lives in Albuquerque \u2013 said she came to the rally to take a stand against socialism and abortion.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is big. He\u2019s coming for us in New Mexico because he cares,\u201d she said. \u201cThe old Democrats, they are not going to go for socialism. He\u2019s going to win New Mexico.\u201d<\/p>\n

New Mexico has an unenforced criminal statute against most abortion procedures that could go into effect if the U.S. Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade.<\/p>\n

A few dozen protesters gathered near the Rio Rancho arena \u2013 relegated to a small area across the street.<\/p>\n

It was a smaller number of demonstrators than turned out during Trump\u2019s two previous visits to the Albuquerque area in 2016, when street violence flared outside his rally at a convention center.<\/p>\n

Trump went on to lose the state by 8 percentage points to Hillary Clinton. Libertarian candidate and former Gov. Gary Johnson took 9% of ballots \u2013 votes that may be up for grabs in 2020.<\/p>\n

Two years later, Democrats flipped a New Mexico congressional seat and the governor\u2019s office while consolidating near-complete control of state government.<\/p>\n

Hours before Trump\u2019s visit Monday, Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham accused the president of demeaning and demonizing Hispanics and immigrants.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe didn\u2019t raise the minimum wage,\u201d she said, referring to a state law she signed to gradually raise the minimum wage to $12 an hour. \u201cHe\u2019s not working to invest in renewable energy jobs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump also repeatedly signaled his support for Second Amendment rights. New Mexico this year enacted several new gun control measures that include expanding background checks to most private gun sales.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

stand in line outside the Santa Ana Star Center arena awaiting the start of President Donald Trump\u2019s rally in Rio Rancho, New Mexico, on Monday. Officials with Trump\u2019s campaign said they are working to win the support of more voters in the traditionally Democratic state ahead of the 2020 election.Russell Contreras\/Associated Press Trump supporters […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":66479,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[1137,138,265],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-66478","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-donald-trump","tag-new-mexico","tag-politics"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66478","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66478"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66478\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66479"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66478"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66478"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=66478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}