SANTA FE, N.M. — The sun is sinking behind the Jemez Mountains as a group of Texas expats gathers with their pint glasses inside a Santa Fe brewpub to consider the state they abandoned, and the state they now call home.
"I 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," says Nancy Fuka, a certified quilt judge. Her husband, Kent, a retired venture capitalist, adds, "You couldn't pay us enough to move back to Texas at this point. The emphasis of fundamental religion just grew and grew."
Another couple chimes in.
"Politically, I wasn't that aware of how blue New Mexico was until I moved here," says Donovan Kolbly, a software developer.
"I look at New Mexico, which is a poor, rural state — sorry, I'm gonna get teary," says his partner, Stephanie Bonzek, a family nurse practitioner, choking up a bit, "but they keep trying to do the right thing!"
In polarized America, people are sorting themselves. Conservatives are fleeing California, for instance, for Idaho and Texas. And some Texas liberals are looking for an exit.
The Land of Enchantment has quietly become a blue refuge in the MAGA red West. New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, a diminutive, firebrand Democrat now in her second and last term, has particularly welcomed refugees from Texas: women seeking abortions, families wanting to protect trans children, doctors seeking a freer medical environment, and disconsolate liberals.
"People are seeking out states in the West where the skies are incredibly blue," says Grisham, 65, in an interview in her Santa Fe office. "We've got four seasons, friendly people, free college, free universal pre-K. ... And we're going to be a safe haven for reproductive health for women and their families all across America."
So many Lone Star liberals 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.
The official Texas response — meh. Last summer, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, reacted to Gov. Grisham trying to lure Texas doctors to New Mexico: "People and businesses vote with their feet, and continually they are choosing to move to Texas more than any other state in the country."
Indeed, 34,000 Texas exiles over two years is a drop in the bucket compared to the 50,000 people who move to Texas every month.
And in the spirit of don't-let-the-door-hit-you-on-the-way-out, a few years ago there was a billboard in the Texas panhandle beside the interstate heading into New Mexico: "Liberals, Please continue on I-40 until you have left our GREAT STATE OF TEXAS."
New Mexico government is deep blue, which is unusual for a rural state dependent on oil and gas, farming and cattle. And, from the governor, to the congressional delegation, to the state legislature, women dominate elective office. In fact, New Mexico has the largest female legislative majority in the country.
New Mexico has passed some of the strongest laws in the nation to guarantee adults and children access to gender-affirming care, to protect LGBTQ+ individuals 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.
"Everyone has the freedom to choose the health care that's right for them, and we don't interfere," Grisham says. "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 firmly and squarely behind that."
But as the saying goes: Poor New Mexico. So far from heaven, so close to Texas.
Definitely not Texas
Its archconservative neighbor to the east, run by Republican men, has outlawed abortion by allowing private citizens to sue abortion providers, militarized its southern border, banned books and forbidden gender-affirming care for minors, and is considering a raft of anti-trans bills.
"Gov. Grisham has reveled in the fact that we are a more Democratic state than Texas," says Fred Nathan, executive director of Think New Mexico, a Santa Fe nonprofit. "I think she fits our state in the same way Gov. Greg Abbott fits Texas, and there seems to be quite a rivalry there."
Last August, Grisham boldly advertised in major Texas cities to convince Texas OB-GYNs to relocate to New Mexico to be able to practice freely. "This ain't Texas," she tweeted. State officials say there've only been a handful of takers because of the high cost of medical malpractice insurance in New Mexico.
In September, when Abbott ordered the Texas National Guard to install razor wire along the Rio Grande facing New Mexico, Grisham shot back: "Gov. Abbott seems to be pushing to make Texas its own country without regard for his neighbors."
"It isn't fair that I can't get health care"
New Mexico has become an abortion sanctuary state in the interior West, along with Colorado, which also votes Democratic. In 2023, 70% of women who got abortions in New Mexico came from Texas.
"Yea, I went to Albuquerque today because Texas did outlaw abortion," says 25-year-old America, a dog groomer from Dallas, in a phone interview, who asked to omit her last name because of privacy concerns. She drove 10 hours with her partner to an abortion clinic in New Mexico's largest city. Nonprofits helped with transportation and the procedure. America says she has a 10-year-old daughter, already lives below the poverty line, and cannot afford another mouth to feed.
"Texas lawmakers would never care to hear this," says America, "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."
"We want to strike a balance between making sure that we're taking care of our own peoples' needs, and also being a refuge for people from Texas and Oklahoma," says Dr. Eve Espey, distinguished professor in the Department of OB-GYN at the University of New Mexico.
New Mexico is also known as one of the most queer-friendly places in the country.
"New Mexico is unique," says Rachelle Vega. The nurse practitioner moved from Austin to Santa Fe four years ago, in part, she says, to live in a more welcoming environment for her two adult trans children. "There's this sense of live and let live that is pervasive."
All this is happening in a state where the Catholic Church — which officially rejects abortion and transgenderism — is a powerful element of New Mexico's identity.
"We're a Catholic state. I'm Catholic," says Rep. Teresa Leger-Fernandez, the congresswoman from Northern New Mexico. "But what we say here is that a health care decision is something you will make in consultation with your own faith, your own familia and your own doctor."
State Sen. Antonio "Moe" Maestas is a veteran Democrat and an 11th-generation New Mexican. He likes to point out that Santa Fe was already a European settlement when the Mayflower pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock.
"Individual rights are very important to New Mexicans, like, don't tell me how to live," Maestas says. "You have to understand we were the farthest outpost of the Spanish Empire. You came to New Mexico to be left alone. So that sentiment resonates today."
New Mexico's appeal is much broader than access to abortion. The state is renowned for cooler summers, cultural richness, high-desert vistas, vast stretches of public land, legal recreational pot and the aforementioned live-and-let-live attitude.
Austin West and Little Texas
While the arrival of so many politically committed newcomers may not be impressive numerically, they can make a difference in a lightly populated state like New Mexico, says Moe Maestas.
"No question. It's been a 20-year influx of white liberals moving to New Mexico because, why not?" says Maestas. "You're either lucky enough to be born here, like myself, or you're smart enough to move here."
Locals complain about newly arrived Texans and Californians driving up real estate prices in Santa Fe and Taos.
"A lot of the people who move here quickly become involved in the community, they're wonderful volunteers in our non-profits," says Rep. Leger-Fernandez, "but the impact on the cost of housing stock is something we need to address."
Maestas says many Anglo liberals who move to New Mexico — the nation's most heavily Hispanic state — are more progressive than the average Democrat.
"I'm very grateful to all the liberal elements who've moved to New Mexico," he says, "but they have to understand Chicanos like myself, we became Democrats not because we're ideologically left, but because our parents were Democrats. And so there is those tensions within the local politics."
His observation was borne out one recent Saturday in a visit to the Socorro Farmers Market, about an hour south of Albuquerque.
"My dad was a Democrat so I'm a Democrat, what can I say?" says Loretta Taylor, who was selling homegrown apples and yard eggs. Though she's a diehard Democrat, Taylor is not happy about the governor using state funds to build abortion clinics.
"That is rubbing me very bad about New Mexico," she continues. "One's already built in Las Cruces and she's planned one up north, right? No, I don't support the abortion part of the Democratic thing."
The New Mexico legislature has been dominated by Democrats for most of the last 80 years. But how long the blue Land of Enchantment will stay that way is anybody's guess. Last November Kamala Harris easily carried New Mexico, but Donald Trump has gained ground in the last three presidential 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.
More New Mexico MAGAs
Republican state Sen. Jim Townsend is from the city of Artesia, which celebrates wildcatters and roughnecks the way Santa Fe does Spaniards and Pueblo Indians. Does he wish his state were more like Texas?
"I really wish New Mexico would continue to be New Mexico," he replies, over a salad at the Wellhead restaurant. "And it is not abortion centers. It is not taking away Second Amendment rights. It is not higher taxes."
Townsend thinks that the Trump bump is not a fluke and that Democrats in state office are a lot more liberal than most of their constituents.
"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."
The Texas/New Mexico political feud does not extend to economics. New Mexico relies on Texas skiers for tourism dollars, and on Texas companies and oilfield workers for much of its oil and gas production.
Every Wednesday, anti-Trump protesters in Santa Fe turn out in front of the state capital, despite it being a hive of Democrats, to rail against the 47th president. The ringleader is Carol Norris, a psychotherapist and longtime activist who says she fled Dallas decades ago.
"Rights are being eviscerated nationwide, but Texas is at the vanguard," Norris says, as she and some friends pack up their signs and bullhorns. If Texans want to relocate, as she did, she says, "I absolutely understand that sentiment, as long as the Texans can honor and respect where they are."
In other words, Norris adds, "Don't let them Texas our New Mexico, dammit."
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