Trump renews call to rename New Mexico ‘New America’

President Donald Trump renewed his proposal to change New Mexico’s name to “New America,” adding unsupported claims that the change would improve the state’s economy and make its elections more honest. Elected officials and candidates from both parties in New Mexico rejected the idea.

Trump made the proposal in a Truth Social post on Monday, October 19, 2026, shortly before traveling to a Republican campaign rally in Kansas. CNN, KOB and The Washington Post reported the statement. No legal name change was announced, and New Mexico remains the state’s official name.

What Trump proposed

Trump wrote that New Mexico should “immediately” become New America, arguing that the state is part of the United States rather than Mexico. He also asserted that the new name would add “value and prestige,” raise home values and incomes, and potentially make what he called the state’s “Crooked Elections” honest.

The post provided no evidence connecting a state’s name to property values or household income. It also offered no evidence of election fraud in New Mexico. The president did not describe legislation, a state constitutional process or any other formal mechanism for carrying out the proposal.

This was a renewed push rather than Trump’s first use of the idea. CNN reported that he shared a map in September with “Mexico” crossed out and “America” substituted. Monday’s post was more direct, calling for an immediate change and attaching economic and election claims to it.

State officials reject the idea

Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham said New Mexico had its name long before the United States existed and would keep it. She also disputed Trump’s election claim, saying independent assessments rank the state’s elections among the country’s most secure.

Democratic Sen. Ben Ray Luján said the name represents generations of history, culture and tradition. Deb Haaland, the Democratic nominee for governor, said Trump should focus instead on the war, tariffs and living costs.

The opposition was not limited to Democrats. Gregg Hull, the Republican nominee for governor, told KOB that New Mexico did not need a new name and said its identity was rooted in its culture, landscape and people. He said his campaign would focus on jobs, costs and energy policy.

Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver, a Democrat, separately rejected Trump’s description of the voting system. She pointed to hand-marked paper ballots, mandatory post-election audits, voter-roll maintenance and system testing as safeguards. Her statement was a response from the official who oversees state elections; Trump’s fraud claim was not supported by evidence in the reports reviewed for this article.

What a presidential statement can—and cannot—do

The proposal differs from Trump’s efforts to change federal geographic usage for bodies of water. CNN noted that a president can direct how the federal government refers to certain geographic features, but cannot unilaterally give a state a new legal name. Any state-level change would have to proceed through New Mexico’s own political and legal institutions.

New Mexico’s name predates U.S. statehood and the founding of the United States. The region became the 47th state in 1912, but variations of its present name had been used for centuries. That history was central to the responses from state officials.

For now, the material development is a presidential political statement and a bipartisan rejection within New Mexico—not an enacted policy. Trump has not released a legal plan, lawmakers have not approved a change, and his economic and election assertions remain unsubstantiated.

Sources and image credit

Primary statement: Donald Trump’s Truth Social post. Reporting and responses: CNN, KOB and The Washington Post.

Image: East entrance of the New Mexico State Capitol in Santa Fe, photographed by N salazar in August 2010. Sourced from Wikimedia Commons and released into the public domain. Center-cropped and resized to 1600×900; no text added.