There’s a saying in Colorado that whiskey is for drinking and water is for fighting, and Democratic congressional candidate Adam Frisch appears to be taking the maxim to heart by throwing some punches at Republican opponent Jeff Hurd over the topic in a TV ad released Monday by Frisch’s campaign.

Frisch, making his second run in the GOP-leaning 3rd Congressional District, says in the ad that he’ll protect the seat’s precious water resources from thirsty outside interests he suggests are linked to Hurd, a fist-time candidate.

“The entire Southwest is stealing our water,” says Frisch, standing on the banks of a rushing stream. “While Jeff Hurd’s law firm brags it helps foreign interests buy up Colorado property, Hurd’s powerful political donors want to divert San Louis Valley water to Denver.”

Hurd, a Grand Junction attorney, founded the local office of Colorado-based law firm Ireland Stapleton, which says in one Denver attorney’s biography that she advises foreign companies and helped a European company acquire a Colorado-based manufacturer.

Former Gov. Bill Owens — a Hurd endorser and Colorado’s last Republican governor — is one of the prominent figures behind Renewable Water Resources, which wants to pump water to the growing Front Range from Southern Colorado’s San Luis Valley, a plan Hurd has repeatedly said he opposes.

“They’re sucking us dry, driving up our housing costs and forcing families out of their homes,” Frisch adds. “I don’t take corporate money but I will protect our land and our water. It’s vital for our economic future and our way of life.”

The 30-second spot replaces the Frisch campaign’s first general election TV commercial, which began running statewide in late August on a $2.5 million ad buy. Echoing ads Frisch ran earlier this summer, the spot portrays the candidate as unbeholden to either major political party.

Two years ago, Frisch nearly unseated Republican U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert in the district, which covers most of the Western Slope and parts of Southern Colorado, including the San Luis Valley. Rather than face a rematch, Boebert moved across the state earlier this year into a more Republican-friendly district, where she’s favored to win another term.

A Hurd campaign spokesman told Colorado Politics that voters will “see right through Adam’s desperate attempt to score cheap political points.”

“While Adam and the Democrats flail about trying to attack Jeff, we have campaigning and publicly fighting to keep water in the San Luis Valley,” said Nick Bayer, the Hurd campaign’s general consultant. “Jeff wants to grow crops in the valley, not houses in Denver.”

“This is as far away from a partisan issue as there can be,” Frisch’s campaign said in a release announcing the ad’s debut. “Southern and Colorado water need to stay in Southern and Western Colorado.”

In January, Hurd told local advocates in Alamosa that Owens’ endorsement didn’t equate to Hurd’s support for the water project.

“When it comes to the issue of water, I’m very parochial and very focused on the area and I would not support any solution or any movement of water period that wouldn’t have the complete buy-in of the communities here in the San Luis Valley,” Hurd said, according to the Alamosa Citizen.

Added Hurd: “An endorsement to me doesn’t get anything in return other than appreciation and gratitude. I make my own decisions. I’m my own candidate. I don’t owe anything to anybody.”

Hurd’s campaign has yet to reserve TV time for the general election.

Mail ballots start going out to most voters on Oct. 11. They’re due back to county clerks by 7 p.m. Nov. 5.