After years of using Texas as a political punching bag, and after her administration blasted New Mexico Republicans for holding their 2021 state convention across the border in Amarillo, Democrat Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham is now set to travel to Texas herself as a featured speaker at the 2026 Texas Democratic Convention.
The Texas Democratic Party announced Friday that Lujan Grisham will serve as keynote speaker for the convention’s Lady Bird Breakfast, one of the marquee events of the gathering.
The announcement is drawing immediate pushback of hypocrisy from critics who note that Lujan Grisham and her administration harshly attacked Republicans when the Republican Party of New Mexico moved its 2021 state convention to Amarillo, Texas, due to New Mexico’s then-strict COVID restrictions.
At the time, the New Mexico GOP said it had little choice but to relocate because Lujan Grisham’s pandemic gathering limits made holding a large in-state convention effectively impossible.
But rather than expressing understanding, the governor’s office ridiculed the move.
“In the meantime, if an organization can’t be bothered to adhere to reasonable health guidelines in a pandemic, by all means, spread the virus elsewhere,” then-press secretary Nora Meyers Sackett said in a statement to the Santa Fe New Mexican. “Hopefully I don’t need to elaborate on the inherent risks to health and safety posed by mass gatherings amid an ongoing pandemic.”
Now, five years later, the same governor who mocked Republicans for “spreading the virus elsewhere” is happily heading to Texas to headline a partisan political event of her own.
Long History of Bashing Texas
The irony goes deeper than the convention itself.
Throughout her governorship, Lujan Grisham has repeatedly attacked Texas—often using the neighboring state as a foil for New Mexico policy messaging.
In 2024, her administration launched a campaign targeting Texas abortion doctors, inviting them to flee what she called Texas’ “draconian” abortion laws and relocate to New Mexico under her “Free to Provide” initiative.
Later that year, while breaking ground on a taxpayer-funded abortion center in southern New Mexico, her office highlighted that the facility would serve patients traveling from Texas, where abortion access is “severely restricted.”
Her administration has also repeatedly used Texas as a punching bag on environmental issues. In multiple press releases from 2023 through 2025, Lujan Grisham’s office touted New Mexico’s methane regulations by contrasting them with “less-regulated Texas,” claiming New Mexico’s oil and gas emissions are “half” those of Texas.
She also criticized Texas border security measures, dismissing Gov. Greg Abbott’s razor-wire fencing efforts near the New Mexico border as a “political stunt” with “no meaningful impact.”
Meanwhile, the Democratic Party of New Mexico joined with Texas Democrats in 2023 to attack Texas border fencing, calling it an “Operation Lone Star stunt” that caused “environmental damage” and “community division.”
Political Double Standard
To Republicans, the governor’s Texas speaking engagement highlights what critics view as a familiar pattern: condemning conservative ties to Texas while embracing Democrat ones.
In 2021, when Republicans crossed state lines for a convention because New Mexico restrictions prevented them from holding it at home, they were mocked and scolded by the governor’s office.
In 2026, when Lujan Grisham crosses the same border for a partisan political speech, it is celebrated.
The episode is likely to fuel further criticism from New Mexicans who have long argued that Lujan Grisham treats Texas (our neighbor) as a convenient political villain—except when it benefits her or her party.
For a governor who has spent years denouncing Texas policies, Texas leadership, and even New Mexicans traveling there for political events, her upcoming keynote appearance at the Texas Democratic Convention is proving to be the very definition of hypocrisy.