GOP candidate for governor says using Trump’s likeness on mailers is ‘no harm, no foul’
Political ads seeking to drum up support for a New Mexico Republican running for governor apparently caught the eye of President Donald Trump this week — and his lawyers are calling for an end to them.
Former New Mexico cabinet secretary and hospital executive-turned cannabis CEO Duke Rodriguez is running for the Republican nomination in the June 2 primary against former Rio Rancho Mayor Gregg Hull and communications professional Doug Turner. His campaign sent out digital flyers and physical mailers that featured Trump in an Uncle Sam get-up, complete with a star-spangled white top hat, next to the message: “I want you to vote Duke Rodriguez for New Mexico governor!”
Attorney Domenic Aulisi with the Dhillon Law Group, a national practice with offices in California, Florida, New York and Virginia, on Monday sent Rodriguez’s campaign a letter on behalf of Trump and his political action committee and demanded an end to the “the unauthorized and deceptive use of President Trump’s image and likeness.”
Former New Mexico cabinet secretary and hospital executive-turned cannabis CEO Duke Rodriguez is running for the Republican nomination in the June 2 primary against former Rio Rancho Mayor Gregg Hull and communications professional Doug Turner. His campaign sent out digital flyers and physical mailers that featured Trump in an Uncle Sam get-up, complete with a star-spangled white top hat, next to the message: “I want you to vote Duke Rodriguez for New Mexico governor!”
Attorney Domenic Aulisi with the Dhillon Law Group, a national practice with offices in California, Florida, New York and Virginia, on Monday sent Rodriguez’s campaign a letter on behalf of Trump and his political action committee and demanded an end to the “the unauthorized and deceptive use of President Trump’s image and likeness.”
“If you guys have any colleagues or friends or people you went to church with, or some guy you went to summer camp with, that can vote in New Mexico, I am begging you to get them to the polls,” Currier said. She did not specifically mention Haaland’s opponent, Bernalillo County District Attorney Sam Bregman.
Haaland, in a statement to Source NM responding to Currier’s comments, said she is the “only candidate running for governor who has created energy jobs.”
Haaland campaign launches ads in Diné, SpanishWith less than two weeks until the June 2 primary election, former U.S. Interior Secretary and Democratic candidate for governor Deb Haaland has expanded her advertising to reach Diné- and Spanish-speaking New Mexicans.
One radio ad features former Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez who, in the Diné language, says that Haaland is the candidate who will “Warrior Up and fight for the people.”
Another ad, which aired in Spanish, tells voters there’s a candidate who is working to improve healthcare, education and public safety across New Mexico. “Y esa persona es la demócrata Deb Haaland,” a narrator says.
The ad campaign follows last week’s launch by Haaland’s opponent, Bernalillo County District Attorney Sam Bregman, of a Hispanics for Sam coalition.
Republican lieutenant gubernatorial candidate says he will quit if Duke Rodriguez doesn’t win nominationAubrey Blair Dunn, a Republican lieutenant governor candidate, said he will drop out of the race if he wins the Republican primary on June 2, but his preferred gubernatorial candidate, Duke Rodriguez, loses.
He told Source NM on Friday he’d exit the race for two reasons.
First, he wouldn’t want to serve as lieutenant with any governor but Rodriguez, who recruited him to join the race and has, in Dunn’s opinion, the best shot of winning in the general election.
Second, he does not believe he would have much to contribute to a Republican ticket that, in Rodriguez’s absence, would feature two white men in a race he believes will be against an Indigenous woman, former U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland — running against Bernalillo County DA Sam Bregman — and New Mexico Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver, who faces state Sen. Harold Pope (D-Albuquerque), a Black man, in her race.
“I don’t think [Republicans] have any chance with two white men on the ticket together against a Native American woman and another woman,” he said.
According to an Albuquerque Journal poll earlier this month, Dunn and opponent Sen. David Gallegos (R-Eunice) each has 20% support among Republicans and independents, with more than half of voters undecided. Four percent of voters said they supported a third candidate, pastor Manny Lardizabal.
If either of Rodriguez’s opponents, former Rio Rancho Mayor Gregg Hull or communications professional Doug Turner, wins the Republican primary, Dunn said, he said he’ll meet with them and stay on as lieutenant governor “if they really want me to.”
“But I’m gonna have a strong conversation with them about, ‘You really probably need to find somebody that adds to your chances of winning in November,” he said. “That’s more important than whether I get to be lieutenant governor or not.”
Dunn said state party rules allow the Republican Party of New Mexico to select a new candidate for a given race after the primary if a candidate drops out. He hopes the party would choose the right candidate to defeat Democrats this November.
“I keep being told not to say it, but I really don’t want the job,” he said. “I’m doing it [running] because I can do the job and because I want to help get somebody good elected so that the state thrives.”
Colorado man may be behind ‘centrist’ dark money group spending thousands on state House candidatesNew details emerged this week about a dark money group that is buying ads backing Democratic candidates for the New Mexico House of Representatives.
New Chapter, New Mexico has spent roughly $85,000 of more than $260,000 it has on hand in support of an array of state House Democrats in contested primaries. Candidates featured in the ads told Source NM that they’d never heard of the organization and have no clue why it would spend money on ads that opponents have called misleading and mysterious.
After Source NM reported on the dark money group earlier this week, an attorney who lives in House District 30 in Northwest Albuquerque filed an ethics complaint and alleged that House District 30 candidate Veronica Mireles illegally coordinated with her fiancé, former New Chapter board member Vincent Chavez.
Chavez told Source NM that he served on the board for roughly two months late last year after an entrepreneur friend asked him to join. Then he heard from Andrew Short, who runs a similar dark money group in Colorado, about joining the “political” organization that seeks to support “centrist” candidates and small businesses.
Chavez and Mireles told Source NM that they did not illegally coordinate between the dark money group and Mireles’ campaign in the Democratic primary against incumbent state Rep. E. Dianne Torres Velásquez. Short did not respond to Source NM’s requests for comment.
A month later, state Rep hasn’t refiled financial disclosure formsA Republican challenging incumbent state Rep. Joshua Hernandez (R-Rio Rancho) in April filed a complaint with the State Ethics Commission and accused Hernandez of violating state law by failing to list the lobbying clients of his romantic partner and business associate on his financial disclosure forms.
At the time, Hernandez told Source NM he’d “get with the [Secretary of State] immediately to ensure compliance” but was confident he’d followed the law.
A month later, a spokesperson for the Secretary of State told Source NM the office has “no record” of Hernandez reaching out and similarly has not received any complaints about his financial disclosure.
Hernandez on Friday told Source NM he was holding off on amending the forms until the commission made a decision.
“Until the Ethics [Commission] says that something is wrong, I’m standing by the fact that we didn’t do anything wrong,” he said. “Dependent on what they say, we’ll follow their lead.”
