New Mexico Democrat Candidate Gabe Vasquez Deletes Tweets Slamming Oil To Masquerade As Moderate

A Democrat framing himself as a moderate in New Mexico’s oil-rich 2nd Congressional District deleted tweets where he labeled the state’s lucrative energy industry “extremely toxic.”

According to CNN, which broke the story on Friday, Gabe Vasquez, a former city councilman for Las Cruces near White Sands National Park, deleted a range of left-wing social media posts as he seeks to unseat Republican incumbent Rep. Yvette Herrell. The contest is rated as one of 31 toss-ups by the Cook Political Report.

“I see conservation as the wise use of natural resources — industrial scale renewable energy production to me, is a viable path forward to replace the extremely toxic fossil fuel industry,” Vasquez wrote in a since-deleted tweet from November 2020. “I admit it has significant impacts on lands, but think it’s a step in the right direction.”

New Mexico’s 2nd Congressional District covers the southern half of the state, including its share of the Permian Basin. The basin is one of the nation’s most productive oil and gas fields, contributing billions to the state economy. President Joe Biden’s cascade of taxes and regulations bearing down on the industry, however, has sent operators in New Mexico, where a third of the state is under federal jurisdiction, to Texas, where the federal government oversees less than 2 percent. Overwhelming federal ownership makes the district’s congressional representative all the more important in navigating constituents’ myriad of public lands issues.

In another deleted post from November 2020, Vasquez signaled support for the Democrats’ Green New Deal, a socialist bill to reorient the entire U.S. economy and destroy the environment.

“To my fellow Dems, let’s avoid playing to the R’s talking points & playing on their field!” Vasquez wrote. “It’s OK to oppose fracking, OK to support the Green New Deal, OK to support Medicare for all, OK to talk about progressive immigration reform, OK to stand for what you believe.”

Vasquez did not respond to The Federalist’s inquiry about whether the Democrat nominee to represent one of the most oil-rich districts in the nation now supports the Green New Deal.

“Investing in oil and gas is irresponsible,” Vasquez wrote in another deleted tweet from January of last year.

Vasquez now claims to be a champion of the oil and gas industry while he’s running for Congress. “I think the oil and gas industry is incredibly important to New Mexico,” Vasquez told a local paper this summer. “It’s incredibly important to this district, and I think it supports an economy that’s not only based on fossil fuel extraction, but it’s also based on the small businesses that support this industry.”

“For Gabe Vasquez to try and hide his radical views is right out of the Joe Biden playbook,” Larry Behrens, the communications director for the energy nonprofit Power the Future told The Federalist.

At a Wednesday press conference, Biden claimed, “My administration has not stopped or slowed U.S. oil production.” According to The Wall Street Journal, however, federal