Ronchetti under fire for accepting campaign contributions from fake presidential electors

Oct. 7—Republican gubernatorial nominee Mark Ronchetti has received campaign contributions from thousands of donors.

In the hundreds and hundreds of pages of campaign finance reports are the names of Lupe Garcia and Rosalind Tripp.

They're not exactly household names.

But the two New Mexicans are among five current or former members of the Republican Party of New Mexico's executive committee who reportedly signed fake electoral vote certificates as part of a scheme to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in favor of Donald Trump.

Their campaign contributions, which represent just a tiny fraction of the nearly $6.4 million Ronchetti has raked in so far, have turned into a public relations problem for the Republican gubernatorial candidate — generating unflattering headlines and stinging criticism from supporters of Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham.

"Associating with seditionists and insurrectionists is a highly alarming pattern for someone running for one of three positions responsible for certifying New Mexico's election results," Delaney Corcoran, a spokeswoman for Lujan Grisham's reelection campaign, wrote in a statement.

"Mark Ronchetti should distance himself from this extreme threat to Democracy and return the cash," she added.

Ronchetti's campaign declined Thursday to explain why it accepted a $2,000 contribution from Garcia, of Santa Cruz, on June 29 and $1,000 from Tripp, of Socorro, on Aug. 19.

The campaign wouldn't explain why it hasn't returned the money, either, but reiterated Ronchetti believes Joe Biden is the legitimately elected president of the U.S., which he answered in a candidate questionnaire for The New Mexican during the Republican primary.

"Mark has made his position extremely clear on this issue. He does not believe that the 2020 election was stolen," his communications director, Ryan Sabel, wrote in a statement.

"However, if there is an assumption to be made about the motivation of campaign contributors I would ask why Michelle Lujan Grisham seems to enjoy such massive contributions from PNM [Public Service Company of New Mexico] after she allowed them to pass off costs incurred by her passage of the ETA [Energy Transition Act] to New Mexico rate-payers OR why she seems to have collected so many campaign dollars from criminal defense attorneys who benefit from her catch and release," he wrote.

Ronchetti may be backed into a corner on the issue.

If he returns the campaign contributions, he runs the risk of alienating members of the Republican Party who still believe the election was rigged. If he doesn't, he opens himself to critics who have painted him as an election denier.

Forged electoral certificates, first obtained through a public records request by American Oversight, a Washington, D.C.-based nonpartisan, nonprofit watchdog, were submitted to Congress in an effort to overturn Biden's 2020 election victory, the organization reported. The documents were submitted by Republicans in New Mexico and six other states — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Kim Skaggs, executive director of the state's Republican Party, did not return a message seeking comment. But the party has downplayed the electors' actions in the past.

"The electors were not fake or fraudulent. They were casting votes in the event that standing legal challenges prevailed and changed the outcome of the election," the party wrote in a news release in February. "This entire media blitz surrounding the electors has been orchestrated by Democrats. It is merely Democrats doing what Democrats do best — change the subject from a miserable performance by President Biden, the Democrats in Congress and in New Mexico."

The electoral certificate they signed did, in fact, include a caveat. It stated they were signing "on the understanding that it might later be determined that we are the duly elected and qualified electors" for president and vice president.

"The election has been settled. President Joe Biden has been in office more than a year," the party wrote in the February news release. "The harassment of law-abiding and upstanding, civic-minded people in our community should not be tolerated in a free society."

The $2,000 contribution from Garcia appeared in a campaign finance report filed in July. The $1,000 contribution from Tripp appeared in the most recent campaign finance report filing.

When the nonprofit news organization Source New Mexico reported the contribution from Garcia, the Democratic Governors Association, which Lujan Grisham used to chair, called on Ronchetti to return the contribution.

The Democratic Party of New Mexico pounced on Ronchetti this week after Source NM reported "another fake elector," a reference to Tripp, had contributed money to his campaign.

"These are the type of people Ronchetti would surround himself with if he is elected, and he can't feign ignorance when he accepted the second check two days after a story about the first check was published," state Democratic Party spokesman Daniel Garcia wrote in a statement.

Corcoran, the governor's campaign spokeswoman, asserted Ronchetti is demonstrating his alliance to "Trump loyalists" by accepting the campaign contributions from Garcia and Tripp.

"While Governor Lujan Grisham is standing up for our democracy and protecting every New Mexican's right to cast their ballot in a safe and secure election," she wrote, "Ronchetti is doing the opposite, pocketing checks from the very people who took steps to overturn the outcome of the 2020 presidential election in New Mexico."

Follow Daniel J. Chacón on Twitter @danieljchacon.