Vasquez goes from ‘defunding’ police rhetoric to ‘I always backed’ cops

A new campaign advertisement for Democrat U.S. Rep. Gabe Vasquez is leaning heavily into law enforcement — but its biggest claim does not survive a look at the federal spending records.

The ad features Bernalillo County Sheriff John Allen declaring, “Congressman Gabe Vasquez supports law enforcement. Period.”

Then comes the eye-popping claim.

“In Congress, he worked with Republicans to deliver four billion dollars in funding to New Mexico police departments so we can keep you safe,” Allen says.

There is a major problem: The roughly $4 billion was not funding delivered to New Mexico police departments. It was nationwide funding for state and local law enforcement programs across the United States.

In fact, Vasquez’s own congressional office previously described the money differently.

A February press release from his office said Vasquez voted for an FY2026 Commerce, Justice, Science appropriations package containing “over $4 billion in funding for state and local law enforcement.” It did not say New Mexico received $4 billion.

The House Appropriations Committee put the nationwide figure at approximately $4.16 billion for state and local law enforcement activities, describing the funding as supporting communities “across the nation.” 

In other words, the new ad takes a multibillion-dollar national appropriation and describes it as though Vasquez helped deliver the entire amount to “New Mexico police departments.”

He did not.

Vasquez voted for the bill — but so did nearly everybody else

There is a kernel of truth in the ad’s claim that Vasquez “worked with Republicans.”

The FY2026 spending legislation passed the House on a 397-28 vote, with 191 Republicans and 206 Democrats voting in favor. Vasquez supported the measure. It later passed the Senate 82-15. 

So Vasquez can accurately say he voted for a bipartisan spending package containing billions for law enforcement programs nationwide.

What the record does not support is the claim that he delivered $4 billion “to New Mexico police departments.”

The amounts directly tied to New Mexico are dramatically smaller, closer to $3.75 million — a little over what a state legislator brings home to their district annually in recent years due to the oil and gas boom.

‘He always has’ meets Vasquez’s 2020 record

Allen goes even further in the advertisement.

“Gabe stands with police,” the sheriff says. “He always has.”

That sweeping statement is harder to square with Vasquez’s own words from 2020.

During a Black Lives Matter protest while serving on the Las Cruces City Council, Vasquez told a television reporter:

“It’s not just about defunding the police, it’s about defunding a system that privileges white people over everyone else.”

The comment was subsequently raised directly with Vasquez during a 2022 PBS interview. Asked whether he supported defunding police, Vasquez answered, “100%, I do not support defunding the police,” pointing instead to his City Council votes to increase police funding. 

But the 2020 television comment was not the only episode.

Emails later reported by Fox News showed a constituent asking Vasquez to support cutting the Las Cruces Police Department budget by “at least” 50%. Vasquez responded that he supported “transformational reform” and told the constituent, “You can count on my support.”

In another exchange, a constituent advocated “defunding the police department and moving those funds to strengthening social programs.”

Vasquez replied: “I agree.”

Vasquez later explicitly rejected the defund-the-police label, saying in 2022, “I oppose defunding the police,” and arguing that his actual budget votes increased police funding.

That evolution is important context missing from an ad telling voters he has supported law enforcement “always.”

Even the Las Cruces funding number has changed

The new ad also says Vasquez increased Las Cruces police budgets by roughly $3.5 million while serving on the City Council. His campaign currently uses an even higher figure — $3.8 million. 

But Vasquez himself gave a different number during a 2024 PBS interview.

“When I was on the Las Cruces City Council, every year that I was there I voted to increase the police budget,” he said, putting those increases at “over $2 million.” 

The campaign now says $3.8 million. The reason for the difference is not clear from the materials released by the campaign, and Vasquez’s City Council tenure had already ended years before he gave the lower figure.

One sheriff backs Vasquez — another says the opposite

Allen’s endorsement also comes only months after a different New Mexico sheriff publicly blasted Vasquez’s relationship with law enforcement.

Eddy County Sheriff Matthew Hutchinson wrote a column for the Albuquerque Journal in June, accusing Vasquez of waiting until after Republican challenger Greg Cunningham, a veteran of the Albuquerque Police Department, criticized him before acknowledging National Police Week.

“When your congressman has to be shamed into showing up during the one week a year dedicated to law enforcement,” Hutchinson wrote, “that is not support. That is damage control.”

Hutchinson endorsed Cunningham and cited Vasquez’s 2020 comments among his reasons. 

Vasquez, meanwhile, has secured endorsements from Allen, Doña Ana County Sheriff Kim Stewart, and other law-enforcement officials, while his congressional record includes votes for police funding, bipartisan anti-cartel legislation, support for the Invest to Protect Act, and efforts to protect federal Regional Information Sharing Systems funding. 

So the full record is more complicated than either campaign’s talking points.

Another campaign claim gets fuzzy

A separate Vasquez mail piece now circulating says he “grew up in New Mexico’s borderlands.”

His official congressional biography uses the broader phrase that he “grew up in the borderlands.” But the U.S. House historian records that Vasquez was born in El Paso, Texas, and graduated from Montwood High School in El Paso. The Las Cruces Bulletin has reported that he grew up in El Paso and Ciudad Juárez and moved to Las Cruces in 2002 to attend New Mexico State University. 

Calling that upbringing part of the broader borderlands is reasonable. Calling it specifically “New Mexico’s borderlands” leaves out where he actually spent much of his childhood.

The bottom line on the new police ad

Vasquez does have a very recent record of voting for law-enforcement funding, including recent bipartisan federal appropriations.

But the marquee claim in the new Sheriff Allen advertisement — that Vasquez helped deliver $4 billion “to New Mexico police departments” — is not what the underlying appropriations measure did.

That approximately $4 billion was nationwide.

And the ad’s declaration that Vasquez has “always” stood with police glosses over a documented 2020 record in which Vasquez discussed “defunding” the system, agreed with a constituent advocating shifting money away from police, and told another constituent seeking a 50% police-budget reduction, “You can count on my support.”

Vasquez has since disavowed defunding police and accumulated a voting record that includes support for law-enforcement spending.

But that is considerably more complicated than the 30-second story his latest campaign ad tells.