A New Mexico Democrat running for re-election in a district won by President Donald Trump thinks that too many white people are involved in outdoor conservation and recreation, according to clips unearthed by The Daily Wire.
Rep. Gabe Vasquez (D-NM) said he looked forward to a world where the outdoor spaces were “no longer white” and took shots at “white monied male” conservation organizations in multiple podcast appearances across 2020 and 2022.
Vasquez, running for re-election in New Mexico’s 2nd congressional district, has a long history of attacking “white rich men” and claiming that white people have special privilege.
“There’s amazing organizations out there that are just promoting diversity, you know, amongst the outdoors and big national organizations that are slowly and finally starting to get it and actually promote policies that create more equitable access and opportunities,” Vasquez said on the Mountain and Prairie podcast in June 2020. “And so, you know, spaces that have been traditionally white will no longer be white. Secret spots will no longer be secret, and hunters and anglers and hikers and everybody in between will look different.”
He argued that people should be actively happy if they see fewer white people out in nature.
“And so not only should you be OK with that, not only should you tolerate that, but you should embrace that, and you should welcome a new set of outdoor users with open arms,” he added. “It’s up to us to be the change that we want to see.”
Vasquez, who once said that New Mexico is built on “stolen land,” is running against Republican candidate Greg Cunningham in a race the GOP sees as a potential pickup. Trump won the district by about 2 percentage points in 2024.
The Democrat lawmaker started an environmental group called Nuestra Tierra in 2017, an organization that complains that “public lands are predominantly occupied by white folks,” pointing to statistics that show visitors to National Forest lands were mainly white.
Later in the Mountain and Prairie podcast, Vasquez claimed that the New Mexico Wildlife Federation, a nature advocacy organization, had no credibility with Hispanics because it has been historically led by white men.
“I think still today, I think every single executive director of the New Mexico Wildlife Federation up until today has been a white male,” he said. “And so there’s no cultural connection there.”
Vasquez, who frequently touts his bipartisan credentials, has long pushed for so-called equity in outdoor recreation and conservation.
In an appearance on The Trail Ahead podcast in June 2022, he said he started a conservation organization because he wanted a group led by an “all people of color board” that would send a message that “conservation/environmental organizations don’t all have to be white.”
“We are the guardians of these places that we all love and live in,” he said. “And nobody can take that away from us as long as we’re able to be here. And so that comes with inherently more power than any white-monied-male organization has, especially coming from the outside or without as deep history or cultural understanding of what those respective communities represent and who they are.”
During the podcast, he noted his efforts to push for New Mexico’s “Outdoor Equity Fund,” a government-sponsored grant program for outdoor programming.
Vasquez, who describes himself as a first-generation immigrant from Mexico who has lived on “both sides of the border,” said in the podcast that he has lost consulting opportunities because of his race.
“I have missed out on a whole lot of opportunities just because I’ve asked for compensation, and it shouldn’t have to be that way because if I was a white consultant working with a major brand or a major nonprofit,” he said.
A review of his social media shows that Vasquez has consistently made derogatory comments directed at white people, who make up about 30% of his district.
“As long as white folks (mostly men!) dominate this nation’s wealth & preside over our nation’s governing bodies & judicial systems, the racism, killing & injustice will continue,” he posted in May 2020. “We need a fundamental power shift in this country & it starts with electing black, indigenous & POC.”
In another post from June 2020, he bashed “white rich men.”
“Black lives matter. Until we deconstruct and rebuild the systems of oppression that keep black people in perpetual harm, justice will not be served,” he said in June 2020. “That includes law enforcement, the economy, and the disgusting wealth inequality that keeps white rich men in power.”
Other posts lambasted the Supreme Court as being great for “straight white males,” and another said history classrooms had been dominated by the “white, male colonialist” perspective.
This story has been updated to note the appearance on the Mountain and Prairie podcast occured in June 2020, not November 2025.
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