Ronchetti decries Dow mailer asserting he called Trump 'stupidest man who's ever lived'

May 28—There's no denying Republican gubernatorial contender Mark Ronchetti called former President Donald Trump the "orange one."

It's on video, after all.

But did the former longtime TV weatherman, who has said he was only joking when he made a crack about the former president's orange hue, also call Trump "the stupidest man who's ever lived," as well as call for his impeachment?

Did he also profess Trump committed voter fraud?

A mailer sent to voters by one of his chief rivals, state Rep. Rebecca Dow of Truth or Consequences, asserts he did.

Ronchetti's campaign asserts he didn't and is accusing Dow of playing dirty political tricks.

"Only those devoid of any ethical and professional standard would stoop so low as to use clearly fake material to smear the leading candidate in a last-ditch effort to help their failing campaign," Enrique Knell, Ronchetti's campaign spokesman, said in a statement.

Dow's mailer is the latest in a series of attacks between the two best-known and best-funded candidates seeking the Republican nomination for governor in the primary election less than two weeks away.

The pair have battled it out on various fronts, including over who is the true conservative in the race.

The slugfest shows no signs of slowing down.

On Friday, Ronchetti's campaign released a new TV ad asserting an employee Dow promoted at a day care she ran after he was accused of lewd conduct went on to molest two children.

Ronchetti's campaign cited a lawsuit it said was settled for $260,000.

"Shame on Mark Ronchetti for re-victimizing a child by using a recycled ProgressNow attack against me for political gain," Dow said in a statement in response to the ad. "Mark only cares about power and he's willing to make a child relive one of the worst moments of their life to score political points."

She said the Boys & Girls Club of Sierra County paid the settlement "and my name was removed from the lawsuit without prejudice."

She sat on the board of the club, Dow said in the statement, but program staff oversaw its operations. She also said "his timeline and incidents described are factually inaccurate."

"We partnered with the New Mexico Coalition of Sexual Assault Programs, called every family at the Club, and printed an ad in the newspaper encouraging more victims to come forward," Dow said. "That's how the incident from December 2014 was uncovered. My involvement with the victim was informing the family that the incident occurred and that counseling services would be provided to him. ... I'm sure a judge will agree that Mark's lies are dishonest and slanderous."

As proof to back the claims of its mailer, Dow's campaign provided links to tweets from the Twitter handle @KRQEMark — Ronchetti used to be the chief meteorologist at KRQE-TV news — as well as tweets in which Ronchetti's wife, Krysty, interacted with the account, including posting photos of the couple, over a four-year period ending Jan. 4, 2020.

The three @KRQEMark tweets the Dow campaign used to craft the mailer are from June and July 2020.

The first states "Trump committed felony voter fraud." The second calls "Donald ... the stupidest man who's ever lived." The third states Trump committed a "federal felony and impeachable offense."

Ronchetti's campaign said the Twitter handle used to belong to Ronchetti, but he changed it to @MarkRonchettiNM when left his career in broadcast journalism in January 2020 to make a bid for the U.S. Senate.

Once Ronchetti stopped using @KRQEMark, the handle was up for grabs, according to his campaign.

Ronchetti returned to TV after he lost the race to Democrat Ben Ray Luján. But he didn't use the @KRQEMark Twitter handle again.

His campaign claims Dow knowingly and purposely used tweets sent out by someone who picked up the @KRQEMark handle, which appears to have happened around February 2020. The last tweet from that Twitter account is dated Aug. 13, 2020, nearly two years ago.

The @MarkRonchettiNM Twitter handle is verified as authentic, while the @KRQEMark handle, which has only 14 followers, is not.

"If Dow thought it was authentic, she would have been using it for months and would have clearly cited and promoted the source," Knell said in his statement. "Instead, she is peddling it out in a last-minute smear. Trying to claim Mark Ronchetti was tweeting from a KRQE Twitter handle in the midst of his U.S. Senate primary and general election campaign defies all logic. This embarrassing attack says a lot more about Dow's judgment and character than it does about Mark Ronchetti."

The mailer doesn't cite the source of Rochetti's supposed anti-Trump sentiment. But two other claims do.

The first: Ronchetti has a liberal past. The source, according to the mailer, is The Santa Fe New Mexican.

The mailer cites a column that portrays Ronchetti as a flip-flopper, not necessarily a liberal.

The second claim: Ronchetti was the keynote speaker "at a George Soros climate activism conference" who used the platform to speak against the oil and gas industry.

The mailer cites the conservative news website, the Piñon Post, which reported in May 2020 that Ronchetti was the keynote at a climate conference hosted by environmental groups backed by billionaire investor Soros, who is known for supporting left-leaning political causes. It was at that conference where Ronchetti cracked about the "orange one."

"I'm a Christian conservative who used to be a Republican until the orange one," Ronchetti was recorded saying. "... I'm afraid that has taken a part of my soul, and that's not coming back."

The remark has continued to haunt Ronchetti, who, according to a recent poll, is the front-runner in the June 7 primary election.

Dow has consistently touted her allegiance to Trump on the campaign trail. In her first TV ad of the campaign season, she vowed to "finish" Trump's wall at the U.S./Mexico border.

During a televised debate among the five Republican candidates seeking the nomination for governor, Dow called herself a "lifelong conservative who's never disrespected President Donald Trump."

Political insiders see Dow's messaging as an attempt to garner the support of Republican voters who support Trump — and a possible endorsement from the former president. Trump has considerable sway among many Republican voters and has been actively involved in other midterm elections.

Trump has not weighed in on the New Mexico governor's race.

Last week, The New Mexican sent an inquiry to Trump's office asking about a possible endorsement in New Mexico's Republican gubernatorial primary but has not received a response to the question.

"Due to the volume of similar demands," Trump's office wrote in an automatic reply, "we will respond only if we require additional information or if there is an opportunity for President Donald J. Trump to participate."

Follow Daniel J. Chacón on Twitter @danieljchacon.