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Democrats should not expect the path to the White House to be a cakewalk if Hillary Clinton faces Donald Trump in November, former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson said Friday. "We've got to be very careful because Trump has tapped into a negativity, a populism that is out there, and I think we have to work extra hard" to attract young voters and turn out the party's base, the 2008 Democratic presidential contender told CNBC's "Squawk Box." Clinton will be a strong candidate, he said, but she will have to overcome her party's shift far left of the American electorate....

Railroads would be required to have at least two crew members aboard freight trains when they are traversing the state under a bill that won preliminary approval in the Colorado House . ... Minority Leader Brian Del Grosso, R-Loveland, took the Democrats to task over the bill, saying it is a poor way to deal with a problem he said they created. He said over the past several years, Democrats have made policy decisions that have contributed to the slowdown, and even closure of coal mines, citing the recent closure of the Bowie No. 2 mine near Paonia specifically. That...

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) scored the endorsement of the chairwoman of the Republican Governors Association, whose name is floated in some circles as a potential vice presidential pick. Gov. Susana Martinez called Rubio "a compelling leader who can unite the country around conservative principles that will improve the lives of all Americans." "The stakes for our great country are too high -- and the differences between the candidates too great -- for me to remain neutral in this race," Martinez added. "I wholeheartedly trust Marco to keep us safe and ensure a better tomorrow, and I look forward to campaigning...

New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez will endorse Marco Rubio's presidential campaign Thursday. "Marco Rubio is a compelling leader who can unite the country around conservative principles that will improve the lives of all Americans," the Republican governor said in a statement given to Politico. "The stakes for our great country are too high — and the differences between the candidates too great — for me to remain neutral in this race. I wholeheartedly trust Marco to keep us safe and ensure a better tomorrow." The endorsement from Martinez, the chair of the Republican Governors Association and the nation's only...

Residents of New Mexico's Boot heel and parts of southern Arizona say human smuggling and drug trafficking is taking its toll on the region. The Deming Headlight reports that residents are scheduled Thursday to express their concerns to federal officials during a meeting at the Animas Community Center in Animas, New Mexico.

<p>ALBUQUERQUE (AP) – New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez won’t say if she will vote for Donald Trump if he is the Republican presidential nominee.</p> <p>But the chair of the Republican Governors Association and the nation’s only Latina governor said Tuesday she’s “certainly not” voting for Democratic hopefuls Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders.</p>

The Republican chairman of a congressional panel investigating a 3-million-gallon spill of toxic wastewater from an inactive Colorado gold mine said Tuesday the mine was purposely breached by a government cleanup team. The assertion by House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Rob Bishop of Utah contradicts claims by the Obama administration that the cleanup team was doing only preparatory work at the Gold King mine. Once it was breached, wastewater loaded with lead, arsenic and other contaminants fouled downstream rivers in Colorado, New Mexico and Utah. Bishop cited an email in which an Interior Department official said the spill last August...

Customs and Border Protection Commission R. Gil Kerlikowske told Border Patrol agents who object to President Obama’s amnesty policies that it’s time to “look for another job,” saying Tuesday that agents have to follow the orders of their superiors. Mr. Kerlikowske was objecting to testimony last month from the Border Patrol labor union chief, who said under Mr. Obama agents have been told to restore the discredited “catch-and-release” policy from a decade ago. The commissioner disputed that, saying every illegal immigrant over the age of 14 who is encountered by agents is supposed to be fingerprinted, interviewed and put through...

The North Fork Valley is now down to one operating coal mine after Friday’s announcement that the Bowie No. 2 Mine near Paonia is being idled. Kentucky-based Bowie Resource Partners said in a news release that the action is occurring “as a result of continued market deterioration.” “The mine will remain idle while the market for Bowie No. 2 coal is evaluated,” the company said. The mine employs 108 full-time employees and one contractor. Bowie said it expects that 68 positions will be eliminated ... Just a few years ago, Bowie No. 2 employed more than 300 miners ... Another...

7 reasons Mike Pence will be the GOP nominee in 2016 Updated by Matthew Yglesias on September 30, 2014, 8:30 a.m. ET @mattyglesiasmatt@vox.com Tweet Share on Twitter (191) Share Share on Facebook (1,129) +1 LinkedIn Share on LinkedIn (15) Email Email MikePence.com Don't miss stories. Follow Vox! Early polling tells you almost nothing about presidential nomination battles, since it ends up almost exclusively telling you about name recognition. Early media buzz is similar. People like to read stories about figures they've already heard of, and it's easier to write stories about politicians you've already covered.But you don't need to be a...

SNIP New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez, once reportedly shortlisted by Mitt Romney's campaign as a possible veep (she says she wasn't interested), fielded questions this week about a hair salon she hasn't visited in months. The reason? Her former hairdresser, Antonio Darden, said he refused to take an appointment by Martinez until she changed her stance on allowing gay couples to get married. "The governor's aides called not too long ago, wanting another appointment to come in," Darden, who is gay, said to local station KOB TV. "Because of her stances and her views on this I told her aides...

The downward slide continued for Colorado's coal industry in 2015, highlighted by production at Routt County's Twentymile Mine, which was down 38 percent. Statewide, production in Colorado was down 18.5 percent, with 18.7 million tons, the lowest amount of coal mined in 23 years. ... Colorado Mining Association President Stuart Sanderson said the drop in production is a result of lower demand, but it was not caused by natural market forces. What we are seeing is the direct result of government regulations that are designed to drive coal out of the energy mix," Sanderson said. He called Colorado's 2010 Clean...

After Jeb Bush suspended his bid for president Saturday, there was much gleeful chatter that the "Bush dynasty" was finally over. Kaput. Goodbye. In the 24 hours that followed, NBC’s "Meet the Press" host Chuck Todd advised his audience, "the Bush dynasty comes to an official end." Vanity Fair published a lengthy "Requiem for the Bush dynasty," while The Atlantic ran "An elegy for the Jeb Bush Campaign." The Guardian put it this way: "Ding, dong, the dynasty is dead: So long to Jeb Bush and the family" while the New Republic declared, "And so the Bush dynasty comes to...

Jeb Bush launched his presidential campaign's exploratory committee on December 16, 2014, the presumptive Republican nominee. He ended his campaign on February 20, 2016, a broken man. Bush's campaign (and the pro-Jeb super PAC Right to Rise) spent over $100 million on his campaign. He won no states. And for the last several months, he's been in the news mostly for all the wrong reasons: desperate donors, misspent money, jokes-that-aren't-really jokes. He's been a loser for almost as long as he was a presumptive winner. The slow, torturous twilight of Jeb's campaign offers a couple of lessons. For one thing,...

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and New York billionaire Donald Trump are nearly tied for the top spot in the presidential primary race among New Mexico Republicans, with Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida a close third, according to a Journal poll. The poll conducted last week by Research & Polling Inc. found that Cruz had the support of 25 percent of New Mexico Republicans who are likely to vote in the 2016 presidential primary election, while 24 percent of the poll respondents favored Trump. Rubio was the preferred candidate of 19 percent of New Mexico Republicans. Seventeen percent of those responding...

Remember the Gold King mine spill in Colorado last August? Probably not. It was big news at the time, with pictures of people kayaking in the state's Animas River, which had turned a kind of sickly yellow from a flood of toxic waste water accidentally dumped into it by the Environmental Protection Agency. That's right -- the EPA. The river had been contaminated not by a more easily demonized private company, but by the EPA itself. The agency took responsibility, a clean-up effort began, and the news cycle moved on to other things. But the Gold King mine spill is...

The head of the New Mexico Environment Department blasted the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday during a legislative committee meeting in the New Mexico Legislature, saying federal officials are downplaying the long-term effects of the Gold King Mine spill. ... Environment Secretary Ryan Flynn told members of the House agriculture committee that the agency has been pressuring communities to get behind a proposal that calls for monitoring water quality for only a year. Flynn also argued that the proposal would look at whether the water is safe for recreation rather than digging deeper into recurring spikes in the readings...

Ignoring the wide public support for a 20-week abortion ban, New Mexico Democrats killed two bills Tuesday that would have protected these late-term babies from abortion. The bills failed in a state Senate committee vote Wednesday after an hours-long debate about abortion, according to The New Mexico Political Report. The bill failed in a party-line vote of 5-4, the report states. The legislation, sponsored by state Sen. Bill Sharer, would have banned abortions at 20 weeks when unborn babies can feel pain and defined viability as “when the life of the unborn child may be continued indefinitely by natural or...

Over the weekend the former president of Mexico took a rather scoffing tone when he said that Mexico wasn’t going to pay one cent for Donald Trump’s “stupid wall.” This is a knock we’ve heard from plenty of The Donald’s critics back here at home as well, coming from Democrats and Republicans alike. I mean… it’s crazy, right? How could anyone expect that to happen?There’s an article this week over at The Last Refuge which might be worth a look if you’ve got an open mind on the subject. One of the less commented on aspects of international relations...

The Utah Attorney General's Office filed a lawsuit Thursday against the Department of the Interior and Department of Agriculture, claiming the agencies' strategy to disallow new mining on or near greater sage grouse habitats is a breach of "numerous federal laws and regulations." The lawsuit in U.S. District Court seeks an order voiding the federal government's land-use plan amendments submitted last year that would directly prohibit new hard rock mining on 233,300 acres in Utah. "The state of Utah claims that the 2015 federal plan amendments disregarded the hallmark of federal land management -- multiple use and sustained yield --...