Aug. 20 – In her big moment on the primetime stage Tuesday, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham warned that former President Donald Trump will again try to repeal the Affordable Care Act if he is re-elected.
“Donald Trump and JD Vance want to dismantle our healthcare system, repeal the Affordable Care Act and eliminate protections for pre-existing conditions,” she said at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
“Either these guys don’t get it, or they don’t care,” she said. “You know who gets it? Kamala Harris gets it, and she cares.”
New Mexico had another moment in the sun earlier in the evening when New Mexico Democratic Party Chair Jessica Velasquez cast the state’s delegation votes for Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. Standing next to her, the party’s executive director Sean Ward also had a moment of social media fame when users commented on his mustache and wardrobe, which may have been more appropriate for the 1972 Democratic National Convention than the 2024 one.
“Is there a time traveler in the New Mexico delegation?” wrote one user on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Harris, who will formally accept the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination at the convention, and Walz have warned voters that the Affordable Care Act will be in the crosshairs of a Trump presidency.
“If Donald Trump gets the chance, he will kill the Affordable Care Act and take us back to a time when insurance companies had the power to turn away people with pre-existing conditions. Remember what that was like?” Harris said at a rally in Philadelphia last week.
Trump has said he will not run to end the law, also known as Obamacare, even though he campaigned on a promise to repeal it in 2016 and tried to do so as president. In 2017, an effort to repeal the law failed in the Senate by a 51-49 vote after the late John McCain of Arizona, a Republican, joined two moderate Republicans, two independents and every Democrat in voting against it.
In March, Trump wrote on the social media network Truth Social that he would make the law “MUCH BETTER, STRONGER AND MUCH CHEAPER,” but he gave no details.
Lujan Grisham indicated in her 4.5 minute speech that Trump cannot be trusted.
“This election is about protecting our democracy and securing our freedoms, including the right to affordable, quality health care,” she said.
Lujan Grisham said the issue is as personal for Harris — whose mother died after a battle with colon cancer — as it is for her.
“When she was 2 years old, my sister was diagnosed with a tumor that was incurable and left her without insurance by the time she was 3 years old,” said Lujan Grisham
The issue is also personal for “Americans across the country who know what it’s like when someone they love gets sick,” she said.
When Republicans tried to thwart the Affordable Care Act, Harris didn’t just vote “no” in the Senate, he voted “absolutely no,” Lujan Grisham said.
“Kamala Harris didn’t just stop Republicans from making our health care system worse,” she said. “She’s fighting to make it better.”
Lujan Grisham didn’t talk much about abortion, a hot topic for the governor and Democrats in general, especially since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, giving states the power to ban abortion. Still, her speech touched on it a few times in passing.
“I’ve worked for 20 years to give Medicare the ability to negotiate lower drug prices. As vice president, Kamala Harris did that,” the governor said. “You know what Donald Trump has done? Garbage plans, higher premiums, abortion bans, and if you don’t think a second term would be worse, I’ve got a box of Trump Steaks for you.”
Isaac Dakota Casados, secretary of the state Democratic Party, said the governor effectively conveyed the importance of electing Harris and Walz to ensure health care remains accessible.
“Governor Lujan Grisham expressed sincere concerns about the potential impact on our country if Trump returns to the White House,” Casados, who is attending the DNC, wrote in a text message.
“She stressed that these elections represent a choice between freedom and joy on one side and corruption and beliefs on the other,” he added.
Velasquez said in a statement that the governor gave an “excellent speech” during a primetime address. The speech, she said, “showed the entire country something we in New Mexico have known for years — that our governor is a leader in promoting accessible, affordable health care and protecting the right to safe and legal abortion.”
In a statement, Republican Party Chairman Steve Pearce said it was “odd that Governor Lujan Grisham would be asked to speak at the DNC about health care when she has turned New Mexico into a hostile state for doctors.” He criticized her policies on medical errors and the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Democrats are responsible for skyrocketing health care premiums that force people to choose between food and care, and their only solution is to impose communist price controls,” he said. “Republicans will reduce inflation to lower health care costs, protect private health care by ensuring quality services through competition, and keep Medicare and Medicaid solvent for every New Mexican who needs them.”
Sen. Greg Baca, Republican of Belen, said Lujan Grisham and Democrats “continue to emphasize issues that undermine and completely ignore the real and immediate needs and concerns of struggling working-class New Mexicans,” such as border security, crime, inflation and the state’s struggling schools.
“These are the issues that New Mexicans, particularly New Mexican mothers and families, are demanding immediate solutions to,” he said in a statement. “I had hoped that our governor would seize this opportunity to call attention to our needs; unfortunately, I was wrong.”
The governor will be in the spotlight again on Wednesday when she takes part in a panel discussion with the nation’s seven other female Democratic governors, moderated by actress and comedian Julia Louis-Dreyfus.
During a ceremonial call of states before the governor spoke, Velasquez cast the state’s 45 delegates for Harris. Before casting the votes, she described New Mexico as a state “where we live our family values, respect women, love our land, love our water, our blue skies, our green chiles, our sunsets!”
Although Velasquez had the microphone, it was Ward who got the most attention — at least on social media — because of his thick mustache, long hair, gold-rimmed glasses and shirt collar over his suit jacket.
“I’m pretty sure this New Mexico representative has been underground since the ’68 Congress,” Nathan Gonzales, editor and publisher of the independent newsletter Inside Elections, wrote on X.
“This New Mexico man has been in suspended animation since 1978,” wrote another user on X. “They just woke him up today.”
Follow Daniel J. Chacón on Twitter @danieljchacon.
