Republican candidate Gabriel E. Gomez ignited controversy on Thursday by calling his Democratic opponent for US Senate, a sitting congressman, “pond scum,” in an interview with a National Public Radio reporter on Thursday. Asked whether his candidate regretted his remarks, spokesman Will Ritter recounted that Gomez not only didn’t regret it, but went further in a television interview Thursday evening: “I was surprised at the controversy,” Ritter recounted Gomez saying. “Pond scum currently has a higher approval rating than Congress.”