Trump calls it "New America." New Mexico had its name 240 years before the country of Mexico did.

“Hello, New America, formerly known as New Mexico.”

That is how President Donald Trump opened the video he posted Saturday endorsing Republican Greg Cunningham, who is running against Democratic U.S. Rep. Gabe Vasquez in the 2nd Congressional District. Halfway through, Trump came back to it: “I do like the change, by the way, to New America. What a beautiful change. That would be up to you. I’m not gonna push it, but a lot of people are liking it a lot.”

The name he wants to retire is older than the country it sounds like it was named for. Spanish explorers were calling this part of the Southwest Nuevo México by about 1580. The country of Mexico took that name when it declared independence as the Mexican Empire on Sept. 28, 1821, more than 240 years later.

The name came first, and the country came later

The name most likely traces to Francisco de Ibarra, whose expedition went north in 1563 and who came back in 1565 boasting that he had found “a new Mexico.” Juan de Oñate made the first permanent Spanish settlement on the upper Rio Grande in 1598, and the name stayed with the province.

The land that is now Mexico was a Spanish colony called New Spain. The 1685 map at the top of this story labels it that way, Nouvelle Espagne, just south of “Le Nouveau Mexique.”

Washington has tried this before, seven times

When Congress made New Mexico a territory in 1850, the name had been in use for more than 270 years. Over the next six decades, as New Mexico tried to become a state, Congress floated seven other names. The goal, in the words of a history once published by Sen. Jeff Bingaman’s office, was “to break any link in people’s mind between Old Mexico and the new state.”

• Lincoln and Jefferson were suggested more than once.
• Montezuma was written into a statehood bill in 1888, and it took a concerted effort to defeat it.
• Acoma had the backing of Bernard Rodey, one of the territory’s last delegates to Congress.
• Salado and Sierra, Spanish for salty and mountain range, had no serious support.

The closest call was Arizona. In 1906, Congress passed and President Theodore Roosevelt signed a law to merge the two territories into one state called Arizona. Santa Fe would have been the capital. New Mexicans voted for it. Arizona voted it down, and that ended the last serious attempt to rename the place. New Mexico became the 47th state in 1912.

A president can’t change it. New Mexico’s voters can

Trump is right that it would be up to New Mexicans. Article I of the state constitution opens, “The name of this state is New Mexico.” Changing it takes a constitutional amendment. A majority of all members elected to each house of the Legislature has to pass it in a regular session. Then it goes on the ballot, and a majority of voters has to approve it.

States have done this. In 2020, Rhode Island voters dropped “Providence Plantations” from the state’s official name, with about 53% voting yes. Trump and the White House announced no formal effort after his September posts, and in Saturday’s video he said he would not push it.

Both candidates for governor say no. Cunningham hasn’t said

Trump first floated the idea on Sept. 6, calling New Mexico “one of the great vote cheating states of all time” and saying the new name was “so much more prestigious and beautiful.” He lost New Mexico in 2016, 2020 and 2024.

The pushback crossed party lines. Gregg Hull, the Republican nominee for governor, said in a statement that “New Mexico does not need a new name” and that the state’s identity “is not up for negotiation.” On X, Deb Haaland, the Democratic nominee, wrote that New Mexico “is not for renaming.” Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham wrote that the name “isn’t up for debate,” and Vasquez wrote, “You don’t get to erase New Mexico.”

Cunningham, the candidate Trump’s video was made for, has not said publicly whether he would keep the name. In September he told the Daily Beast that Democrats were “trying to distract voters from their awful record by focusing on what the President is posting on social media.” After Saturday’s video, he told the Santa Fe New Mexican he was “honored to have the President’s support” and called himself a “proud New Mexican.” The Ledger emailed his campaign on Tuesday to ask whether he supports renaming the state and will add his answer when it comes.