EXCLUSIVE: New Mexico GOP State Candidate Blasts ‘Disgusting’ Democrat Ad Attacking Police

Many have expressed outrage and “disgust” after New Mexico Democrats attacked law enforcement while targeting Republican legislative candidate Greg Cunningham of Albuquerque in a recent political ad on abortion. 

The Democratic Party of New Mexico released a TV ad on Saturday insinuating that Cunningham, a former police officer running for State House, would arrest pregnant women if he succeeded in the upcoming election.

The new political ad, which was broadcast only days before the 2022 midterm elections and paid for by far-left New Mexico House Speaker Brian Egolf’s (D-Santa Fe) political action committee on behalf of Democratic incumbent Joy Garratt, targets law enforcement while attacking Republican candidate Greg Cunningham.

The ad depicts a mother and daughter being pulled over by suspecting police officers who question whether the two are headed toward the border and whether the daughter is pregnant.

She is then asked to step out of the vehicle and forcibly removed by an officer when she hesitates.

The ad concludes with the words “PROTECT HER” and “REJECT GREG CUNNINGHAM.”

In response to Egolf’s political attack on law enforcement and Cunningham, House Minority Whip and Republican state Rep. Rod Montoya accused Democrats of having “dropped the mask and shown us who they really are” at the last moments of their campaign.

“They are attacking police officers and framing them as predators in a new ad attacking Greg Cunningham, a former Albuquerque police officer,” he said. “This is disgusting, and it exposes who they really are.”

Montoya also called on Garratt to disavow the “horrendous attack” on law enforcement. 

“I call on Speaker Egolf’s PAC, the responsible party, to take this ad down immediately and apologize to law enforcement all over the state for this blatant political attack on them,” he said. 

Cunningham himself called on Garratt to condemn the “attack” on law enforcement.

“In the final hours of her reelection campaign, Joy Garratt 4 New Mexico should denounce this disgusting attack on police officers which is being run on her behalf,” he wrote. 

“The sad reality is that her party has become so anti-law enforcement that she prefers to score political points at the expense of the hardworking police officers of Albuquerque,” he added.

In addition, Republican House Minority Leader Jim Townsend of Artesia also slammed the “shameful” ad.

“It’s a shameful display and shows contempt of law enforcement,” he said, noting that “Progressive Democrats have attacked law enforcement with every pro-crime bill they have passed in the House.” 

“To be this overt in their contempt exposes which side they’re on, and it is not the voters of New Mexico,” he added.

In an exclusive statement to Breitbart News, Cunningham, a retired law enforcement officer and candidate for the State House in New Mexico, blasted Democrats for the “disgusting” move.

“For Democrats to drop a political ad attacking police in the final days of this election cycle is disgusting—but I think it’s going to backfire,” he said, noting that “one of the main reasons that so many typically Democrat strongholds in New Mexico are up-for-grabs this cycle is because of crime.” 

“And one of the primary reasons crime is so high in Albuquerque is because of the progressive Democrat attacks on our law enforcement,” he added. “The voters know this, and they’re fed up with it.”

He also argued that the “tide” is turning over attitudes toward police.

“After my time serving in the Marines, I became a police officer in Albuquerque,” he said. “Law enforcement has taken a lot of heat in the court of public opinion over the past few years, but that tide is beginning to turn because of how bad crime has gotten here.” 

“Voters realize that they need police who are empowered to do their jobs,” he added.

The Albuquerque Police Officers Association’s Facebook account described the ad as “disgusting, ridiculous and insulting.” 

“Shame on you Brian Egolf – Speaker of the New Mexico House of Representatives this portrayal of officers is beyond awful,”  the group wrote. “Your fear-mongering knows no limits.”

In recent years, Democrat leaders have launched a spate of attacks on law enforcement, caving to Black Lives Matter (BLM)’s call to “defund the police,” which became popular with the left during and after the 2020 presidential election season. 

However, crime has surged nationwide after progressives campaigned endlessly against police, leading to eroded confidence in law enforcement, sunken police morale, and an officer exodus.

Following the defunding of police in many Democrat cities, murder rates rose 16 percent in 2021 across major U.S. cities, a trend that has bled into 2022. 

Big cities also continue to see an upward trend of violent crime in places such as Los Angeles and New York City — both of which defunded their departments and employed soft-on-crime “bail reform,” which allows career criminals back on the streets.

However, with a continuing crime wave across America’s big cities, poll after poll after poll has shown that a majority of voters do not support defunding police, with many expressing their belief the policy has hurt public safety and contributed to rising crime.  

In response, Democrats have begun to distance themselves from the policies they pushed, at one point even attempting to blame Republicans for defunding police. 

More recently, both President Joe Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) denounced the idea, with Pelosi proclaiming that defunding police is not a policy of the Democrat Party. 

In May, radical activist group BLM railed against the “white supremacist” institution of “policing,” decrying its roots in “racism” and “slave patrolling,” while attacking politicians who support “our killers,” in a series of tweets following President Joe Biden’s signing of an executive order on policing reforms.

In January, Brown University economics professor Glenn Loury lamented the current state of crime nationwide, accusing BLM activists of having “buckets of blood on their hands” for their role in soaring crime and homicide rates

In December, it was revealed that BLM activists gave a talk to over 150 people, telling students that “crime is made up” and black people are “enslaved” when they are sent to jail.

Last May, Breitbart News reported that since the death of George Floyd, Hollywood has devoted significant airtime to promoting far-left racial ideologies, with one report finding that 127 TV episodes have pushed BLM, the “defund the police” movement and the belief that America is “systemically racist.”

However, in September, the New York Times published an op-ed mourning the apparent “death” of the issue, regretting it had not “caught on broadly enough” and warning Americans will yet “regret” rejecting it.