ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) - A Republican congressional hopeful in a critical southern New Mexico race who has made her “100% support for Donald Trump” part of her campaign once sought backing for U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz for president, according to an email.
A March 2016 email from former state lawmaker Yvette Herrell asked fellow Republican legislators if they were interested in supporting Cruz. At the time, Cruz was in a heated primary battle with Trump for the GOP presidential nomination.
“If you support (Cruz) and would like to add your name to the growing list of State Legislators that are endorsing him around the country, please fill out the attached card and return it as directed,” Herrell wrote.
Herrell didn’t explicitly say she was supporting Cruz over Trump. Still, her GOP primary opponents say it counters the story Herrell told voters in 2018 and recently that she supported Trump from “day one” and is the one candidate who supports him unconditionally.
“Yvette changes her position depending on who she speaks with,” said Chris Mathys, one of Herrell’s opponents. “I have supported Donald Trump since he wrote the ‘Art of the Deal.’ I voted for him in the primary and general election. He has been the best president in my lifetime.”
Mike Berg, the campaign manager for Claire Chase, another Herrell opponent, said the 2016 email showed that Herrell is not being truthful about her previous support of Trump. “Sadly, it’s not surprising that a career politician like Yvette Herrell would lie about supporting President Trump to get a promotion,” Berg said. “The real question is, if Yvette would lie about this, what else has she lied to us about?”
Herrell’s campaign manager Dakotah Parshall dismissed the email and said Herrell was just being helpful to her fellow state legislators. “As this email shows, Yvette did not endorse Sen. Cruz, but simply passed along information about his campaign to her colleagues when asked,” Parshall said.
Parshall blamed the Chase campaign for circulating the email and for trying to distract voters from old social media posts where she attacked then-candidate Trump for his behavior.
In 2015 and 2016, Chase wrote several Facebook posts denouncing Trump as he sought the GOP nomination for president before publicly supporting him in the general election. Chase used a vulgar term to describe Trump in one post and in another derided former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s endorsement of Trump.
Chase, an oil executive, said she later voted for Trump in the general election and has been very pleased with his actions as president. Her campaign recently released an online video featuring images of Trump.
Democrat Xochitl Torres Small defeated Herrell in 2018 by fewer than 3,000 votes to flip a traditionally Republican-leaning district on the U.S. border.
Herrell faced criticism after turning down all debate invitations in 2018 and dodging many reporters during the campaign. She has vowed to run a different campaign in 2020.
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