New Mexico Republican Elisa Martinez is vying for the recently vacated U.S. House seat in her state, telling host Matthew Boyle on SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Saturday she intends to fight for the working class and combat the Biden administration’s energy and immigration plans should she be elected.
Martinez, a native New Mexican who is Hispanic and Native American, is one of nine Republicans the state’s central committee members will consider as their candidate to replace former Rep. Deb Haaland (D-NM), who was confirmed last week as President Joe Biden’s Department of Interior secretary.
The committee will vote March 27 on the candidate and a special election will take place June 1. Boyle observed the election is “fast approaching” and that although the seat is winnable for Republicans, it will be “a little bit of an uphill climb.”
“Despite the fact that this district is an uphill climb, a D plus seven, we know that New Mexicans are fed up. They’re tired,” Martinez replied. “There is a lot of pressure on our middle class, on New Mexicans and Americans right now. And the bottom line, you know the pressure that they’re seeing at the gas tank, the rising food prices that we’re seeing as a result, the rising prices for pharmaceuticals, insulin prices, these are all attacks on the middle class. … All of this is as a result of unilateral action by the Biden administration and congressional Democrats that really is alarming.”
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Martinez also railed against Biden’s ban on new oil and gas leases on federal lands. “New Mexico is kind of almost ground zero for this oil and gas crisis that we’re seeing and the moratorium on the new leases because New Mexico, 40 percent of our budget depends on oil and gas revenues.”
Martinez vowed to “immediately introduce” legislation to prohibit the Biden administration from blocking new leases without congressional approval, as well as sign on to new legislation exempting New Mexico in the meantime. “We need someone that’s obviously going to push back against these government mandates to transition — and effectively what this moratorium has done is it didn’t even allow for a transition. The American people had the rug pull out from under them.”
The New Mexican Republican, who is campaigning as a “different kind of Republican” — being working class, “not part of the establishment,” and “not a career politician” — also lambasted Biden’s immigration policies given her state’s geographic position makes it one of the most vulnerable to the negative impacts of them. Martinez called the recent massive influx of migrants, including unaccompanied children, at the southern border a “humanitarian crisis” and demanded an end to catch and release, a reinstatement of the Remain in Mexico policy, and the continuation of the southern border wall construction.
“We need to take care of American citizens first,” Martinez said. “Right now, we cannot even address the rampant homelessness, the poverty, single mothers that are struggling, Native Americans without running water and electricity, unemployment is on the rise here in New Mexico. We have the fourth highest unemployment rate in the country and business owners who have lost everything. So before we can allocate resources, healthcare services, welfare services, free schooling, to noncitizens that are trying to get in through our southern border, we need an economic recovery for our own citizens right now.”
Steve Pearce, New Mexico GOP chair, also spoke with Breitbart News Saturday this past weekend and called the open congressional seat in his state’s first district a “pickup opportunity” for Republicans. Pearce said, “People are asking significant questions between Biden and Michelle Lujan Grisham, our governor, that just believe this is a pickup opportunity for the Republicans. Nationwide, it would set the Democrats’ House upside-down when we win this race, and so we’re all in for it.”
Breitbart News Saturday broadcasts live on SiriusXM Patriot 125 Saturdays from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. Eastern.
Write to Ashley Oliver at aoliver@breitbart.com.
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