While Ms. Martinez deplored Mitt Romney’s suggestion of “self-deportation” as a solution to illegal immigration, she also directed police officers in New Mexico to inquire about the immigration status of those arrested, a move described by one immigrants’ advocate as “our mini S.B. 1070,” a reference to Arizona’s restrictive immigration law.

While she has promoted economic recovery as one of her major goals, Ms. Martinez has almost single-handedly fought for repealing the driver’s license law. And all along she has refused to entertain any deals…

Ms. Martinez said she keeps a list of the promises she made during her election campaign and puts check marks next to those she has fulfilled.

“I don’t waver from them,” she said during an interview in her office here, and then went on to recite her foremost accomplishments: raising the state’s dismal high school graduation rate by 7 points, to 70 percent; eliminating a locomotive fuel tax, which was decisive in luring the Union Pacific Railroad from El Paso to southeastern New Mexico, where it is building a $400 million hub; and promoting a program that has made it easier for trucks from Mexico to unload their cargo in New Mexico, resulting in record-setting traffic at two of the state’s border-crossing ports.