The United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce wants Republicans to put Susana Martinez on the presidential ticket this fall.
The organization made the announcement on Friday, just days before the Iowa caucuses, which kick off the road to the presidential nomination.
Right now, the frontrunner for Republicans is businessman and reality TV star Donald Trump. Trump kicked off his campaign by angering Hispanics with his comments about Mexicans.
“When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re not sending you,” Trump said in his speech. “They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.”
Martinez denounced Trump’s remarks.
“I think those are horrible things to say about anyone or any culture … anyone of any ethnicity,” the governor said, according to the Associated Press. “I mean, that is uncalled for … completely.”
Martinez has also consistently said she would not run for federal office. In 2012, she cited the fact that she has to take care of her sister, who has cerebral palsy.
Previously, Marco Rubio mentioned Martinez’s name as a possible vice presidential candidate and Jeb Bush mentioned a woman as a possibility for vice president.
Of course, this all came before the infamous audio of Martinez speaking to police after a rowdy hotel party. The Washington Post said shortly afterward that Martinez gained “a reputation within corners of the consultant class as Palinesque: gaffe-prone, not intellectually curious, and not up for the rigors of a national campaign.”
A columnist for the Las Vegas Review-Journal in Nevada, not to be confused with New Mexico’s Las Vegas Optic, wrote that “it seems her prospects for courtship on the national political stage lack a snowball’s chance to survive in 2016.”
The group is non-partisan. They previously endorsed Julián Castro, the Housing and Urban Development secretary, for the position on the Democratic side.
Castro endorsed Hillary Clinton and has campaigned on her behalf.
A longtime Democratic fundraiser raised the possibility of Martin Heinrich slotting in behind Clinton on a possible Democratic ticket.
