KRWG Public Media spoke with candidates up for election on election night. KRWG’s Noah Raess spoke with Lori Martinez, a Democratic candidate for New Mexico state representative in district 37.
Noah Raess:
How are you feeling tonight so far?
Lori Martinez:
How am I feeling? Like, this is really surreal. You know, running for office is a huge decision. And obviously, I've never done this before. But it's, you know, it's really, in a lot of ways, really wonderful. Like, for all these people here and so many people, came around me with their love and support. It's just unbelievable. And so I didn't want to let myself down, but I also didn't want to let them down.
Noah Raess:
And how would you describe your campaign and how do you feel about the campaign that you ran?
Lori Martinez:
Well, I don't think anybody can say they outworked us. You know, we were knocking on doors all the time, twice a day on weekends. We made the calls we made. You know, we did everything we could think of. And so I'm just, you know, I've been working here for 23 years as a social worker, building relationships kind of across all manner of different areas. And so many of those people that I've met over the years showed up. And then obviously I had the support of, you know, and a lot of endorsements, and people who believed in me. So it's very humbling and gratifying. But, you know, we just acted like we were behind the whole time and just worked as hard as we possibly could.
Noah Raess:
And if things go your way, what are you looking forward to working on next and I guess what are your plans after this if it goes well?
Lori Martinez:
Well, you know, I think it's a lot of the same things I was talking about during the campaign. In my day to day work, we do legislative work. And so there are all these things, you know, that I talked about during the campaign that we want to continue working on. I really want to see paid family medical leave get across the finish line. I want to make sure that we're, taking precautions and making sure to protect our environment. There's investments in education we really need to be making. We have a real chance at universal health care in New Mexico, you know, and there are things that we can do that can drastically improve quality of life for everyone. And so I think we have to take that so seriously and also with the way things are going, you know, under the Trump administration, I think our state legislature and our local government, these are places where we can protect our people. And so that's, you know, that's a huge deal. We have to do everything we can to protect our people, but also to increase quality of life as much as we can.
Noah Raess:
And regardless of who wins today, what do you hope to see the candidate do?
Lori Martinez:
That's always the hardest question. Just to pick like the one thing you know. But one of the things I do keep coming back to is health care. You know, if I think about the one thing that would improve quality of life for just about every person in New Mexico, it's access to health care. You know, people want access to care and quality care, and it needs to be affordable. You know, we have, when it comes down to it, our health is one of the most precious things we have. And so if that's something we can do that would help everybody, then I am all about it.
