Women governors are making history of late. If Deb Haaland wins her race to preside over New Mexico in 2026, she’ll continue that trend.
This week, Haaland, who most recently served as Secretary of the Interior under President Joe Biden, announced in a video that she will be running for governor of the Land of Enchantment, as current Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham has reached her term limit. If Haaland wins, she will be the first Native American woman governor in United States history. She is an enrolled member of the Laguna Pueblo tribe.
Haaland, 64, said in the launch video – a precursor to a statewide tour – that she’s ready for the fight. “In my life, I’ve learned that nothing comes easy,” she said, offering a candid look at some of her past struggles as proof. “Moving around a lot as a kid in a military family; raising my child on my own; achieving 35 years of sobriety. But here in New Mexico, struggle makes you fierce.”
In her video announcement, Haaland touched upon the efforts she made to keep her family afloat in tougher times, including starting up to sell her own salsa, living with friends during periods of homelessness, and cleaning at her child’s preschool in exchange for a reduction in tuition.
When elected to Congress in 2018, and then appointed to the Department of the Interior in 2021, she says she felt galvanized to use those positions of power to effect change – in hopes of making people’s lives easier than what she’d experienced. Specifically, she helped minority entrepreneurs launch small businesses, promoted solar energy use and enacted water protection measures, among other efforts.
Now, she aims to bring that spirit of action to the post of New Mexico’s governor, citing small business creation and affordable housing as top priorities, along with increasing funding for schools and lowering crime rates. “The problems we face now are bigger than ever – and we must be fierce to solve them,” she stated.
There appears to be solid momentum around her campaign – in addition to a glut of national press coverage, she told the Albuquerque Journal that she’d already raised $686,000 in campaign contributions, from over 13,000 donors.
The historic nature of her candidacy, and of the work she’s already done, is not lost on Haaland – nor is the importance of having voices like hers involved in government.
When Haaland spoke to The Story Exchange in 2018, she emphasized the need for a diverse mix of people at every decision-making table – and added that Native Americans have been excluded to the point where the rest of the nation is now estranged from her community. “Sometimes I feel like folks don’t have enough knowledge or understand the history of what Native people have endured in this country,” she told us.
“Maybe they need somebody to help them to understand some of those things,” Haaland continued – maybe someone like her.
