Why Did The New Mexico GOP Back Solomon Peña?
New Mexico Republican Solomon Peña was pretty typical MAGA candidate— an angry, aggrieved misfit. He had no chance to win, running against a popular incumbent, Miguel García, in a deep blue district (Downtown Albuquerque, Barelas, South Valley, Old Town…). On his Twitter feed, he called himself “the MAGA king.” A deranged criminal who was convicted of 19 felonies, including burglary, larceny, contributing to the delinquency of a minor and receiving stolen property in a series of smash and grab robberies around Albuquerque, Peña spent almost 7 years in prison. (He used stolen cars to smash into more than 50 stores and managed to steal around half a million dollars worth of merchandise.) But the district is so Democratic that no one challenged him in the Republican primary and he was accepted by the party and campaigned with other Republicans running statewide and in Albuquerque. Before the election, representing the professed “law and order” party, he defended his criminal career by claiming he “had nothing more than a desire to improve my lot in life.”
Peña lost the general in a gargantuan landslide of rejection— 73.6% to 26.4%. That didn’t stop him from insisting the election was rigged and that he was the winner. He never conceded, claiming he knows he won because he knocked on so many doors.
Instead he participated in the January 6 coup attempt in DC and then <>hired 4 criminals (including at least one fentanyl dealer) to shoot up the houses of several local Democratic politicians. News of his arrest broke yesterday and it was announced that Peña himself was one of the shooters in at least one of the incidents.
The Albuquerque Journal provided this timeline of the incidents:
Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller (D): “At the end of the day, this was about a right-wing radical, an election denier who was arrested today and someone who did the worst imaginable thing you can do when you have a political disagreement, which is turn that to violence. We know we don’t always agree with our elected officials, but that should never, ever lead to violence.”
Peña’s rudimentary campaign website is still up. It includes a crackpot essay on the dangers of solar energy and an even crazier essay on “critical race theory” that begins with this paragraph: “Critical Race Theory, the entire Black Lives Matter movement, aborting the unborn, food stamps, affirmative action, etc. are all demonic. There is no inequality in the USA. The USA is a great land of freedom and opportunity for all who are willing to work. Solomon Pena is a Traditionalist, Religious conservative. Not a Neo or Individualist Conservative.”
Elsewhere on the website, he sounds like any other garden-variety ignorant MAGA lunatic who should be in prison rather than running for office: “There is no systemic racism. Latino/Hispanic persons and our Black brethren are free to pursue fulfilling lives. Prior to Trump being President the coastal elites, welfare deadbeats, foreign nations and illegal aliens were benefiting at the expense of the American middle class. This was a consequence of multifaceted global forces of erosion such as globalization and it was specifically being done to appease the demonic theories of the Globalist Elites and their foreign counterparts. Donald Trump reversed the cited action as much as his constitutional authority permitted. All colors of Americans were better off when D. J. Trump was President.”
He promised to “Seek justice concerning the rigged 2020 Nov N.M. General Election. This action was treason. They overthrew DJT. The offenders are not criminal defendants, they are enemy combatants that must be placed in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba for the remainder of their natural lives.”
