{"id":88706,"date":"2020-05-07T22:02:43","date_gmt":"2020-05-08T04:02:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/tea-party-super-pac-calls-gop-us-house-hopeful-a-liberal\/"},"modified":"2020-05-07T22:02:43","modified_gmt":"2020-05-08T04:02:43","slug":"tea-party-super-pac-calls-gop-us-house-hopeful-a-liberal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/tea-party-super-pac-calls-gop-us-house-hopeful-a-liberal\/","title":{"rendered":"Tea Party Super PAC calls GOP US House hopeful a \u2018liberal\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"GOP
GOP U.S. House candidate Claire Chase speaks to voters in Los Lunas, N.M., in February.<\/span>Russell Contreras\/Associated Press file<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The ad released this week by House Freedom Action Super PAC attacks oil executive Claire Chase over old Facebook posts from the 2016 presidential primary, where Chase expressed dislike for Donald Trump\u2019s behavior. A female voice reads Chase\u2019s past posts with an image of the president shaking his head.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen it mattered most, Claire Chase sounded like crooked Hilary Clinton,\u201d a male voice says. \u201cBecause Claire Chase is a Trump-hating liberal.\u201d<\/p>\n

The ad then says Trump needs allies, not \u201cliberal enemies\u201d like Chase or \u201cnasty Nancy Pelosi\u201d in Congress.<\/p>\n

Claire, a former supporter of U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida for president, has since apologized for her old posts and said she was wrong. Claire said she voted for Trump over Hillary Clinton in 2016.<\/p>\n

She\u2019s locked in a contentious GOP primary with former state lawmaker Yvette Herrell and Las Cruces businessman Chris Mathys for a chance to challenge Democratic U.S. Rep. Xochitl Torres Small, who represents a swing southern New Mexico district.<\/p>\n

Chase and Herrell have been trading attacks on who is the most stalwart supporter of Trump while trying to portray the other as a secret Trump hater.<\/p>\n

The latest Super PAC ad comes after the House Freedom Fund, a group made of some of the most conservative members of Congress, endorsed Herrell.<\/p>\n

Herrell also has boosted her endorsements from U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, a founder of the Tea Party-influenced House Freedom Caucus.<\/p>\n

Chase campaign manager Mike Berg said the new Super PAC\u2019s ad was \u201cdisgusting,\u201d and overlooks Herrell\u2019s own anti-Trump past.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf anyone is similar to Hillary Clinton, it\u2019s Yvette Herrell. They\u2019re both unlikable liars who tried their best to defeat President Trump in 2016,\u201d Berg said. \u201cThey also both lost races they thought they won.\u201d<\/p>\n

Herrell lost to Torres Small by less than 3,000 votes in 2018. She initially thought she won and didn\u2019t concede the race until weeks later.<\/p>\n

Citizens for a United New Mexico, another Super PAC, has bought ads alleging that Herrell sent emails in 2016 \u201cto undermine Trump\u2019s campaign for president\u201d and attended an \u201canti-Trump soiree\u201d in San Diego with a Trump pi\u00f1ata \u2013 claims that Herrell said are false and misleading.<\/p>\n

The Republican race garnered attention this week after Chase called on Herrell to leave the race over allegations she was spreading false rumors about her first marriage. The Associated Press also obtained text messages showing Herrell offering suggestions on a cartoon about the rumor. Herrell denies she was involved in repeating any rumors about Chase\u2019s first marriage.<\/p>\n

The sprawling, Republican-leaning district is home to a lucrative oil region but also has some of the most impoverished communities in the U.S. The district has the highest percentage of Hispanic voters in New Mexico, the state with the highest percentage of Hispanic residents.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

U.S. House candidate Claire Chase speaks to voters in Los Lunas, N.M., in February.Russell Contreras\/Associated Press file The ad released this week by House Freedom Action Super PAC attacks oil executive Claire Chase over old Facebook posts from the 2016 presidential primary, where Chase expressed dislike for Donald Trump\u2019s behavior. A female voice reads […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":88709,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[815],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-88706","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-associated-press-new-mexico"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88706","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=88706"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88706\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/88709"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88706"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=88706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}