Susana Martinez of New Mexico is the first female Hispanic governor in the country. She’s also a gun-toting, tough-on-crime conservative Republican, and that’s got Democrats in New Mexico itching to defeat her. Martinez’s Democratic opponent for reelection this year is attorney general Gary King, the son of former three-term governor Bruce King. In new video obtained by THE WEEKLY STANDARD, the younger King told fellow Democrats at a fundraiser that Martinez “does not have a Latino heart.”
King recalled the words of a previous speaker at the fundraiser, Hispanic labor activist Dolores Huerta. “She said you can’t go out there and just vote for somebody for governor because they have a Latino surname,” King says. “She said you have to look at them and find out if they have a Latino heart. And we know that Susana Martinez does not have a Latino heart.” Watch the video below:
King made the remark on Saturday at the Valencia County Democrats’ annual fundraiser in Belen, where tickets were $60 a person.
This isn’t the first racial attack Martinez has faced. In her successful 2010 run, she was dubbed by her opponents as “la Texana”—Spanish for “the Texan” but a thinly veiled epithet meaning someone of Mexican and lower-class descent. Despite those efforts, she won her race, even earning 40 percent of the Hispanic vote.
The “Texan” innuendo reared its head again earlier this year, when another Democratic candidate hoping to challenge Martinez told supporters they needed to “send her back to wherever she really came from.”
“I suspect it’s Texas,” the candidate added.
Martinez currently leads King in the polls. She has also reported having $3.8 million cash on hand, while the Democrat has just over $150,000.
