Can Deb Haaland Make History in New Mexico's Governor's Race?
American has never had an Indigenous woman as governor. The question Haaland’s campaign poses is: What might that mean?
Reported by Vogue.
Deb Haaland walks into a Shiprock elementary school gym carrying pastry trays and the kind of self-possession that doesn't require an entourage. She greets strangers the same way she greets everyone: "Hi, I'm Deb Haaland." At 65, former Secretary of the Interior under President Biden, she is now running for governor of New Mexico — and if she wins, she'd become the first Native American woman ever elected to that office in the United States.
The campaign trail here covers roughly 1,000 miles of terrain that is, according to Vogue, particularly American — O'Keeffe country, salt flats near the site of the first atomic bomb, border towns, spa towns, and farmland where water rights are a slow-burning crisis. Haaland moves through all of it in jeans, a paisley blouse, and silver earrings shaped like symbols for clouds and rain. Her Democratic primary opponent, Sam Bregman, showed up to the same Navajo council meeting in a cowboy hat and blazer. The contrast was not subtle.
Thirty-Five Generations Deep
Haaland is a member of the Laguna Pueblo, and her connection to New Mexico predates the American Revolution by centuries. When she first ran for Congress in 2018, opponents bragged about being 13th- or 17th-generation New Mexicans. She did the math: her ancestors arrived in the Rio Grande Valley in the late 1200s. "I'm a 35th-generation New Mexican," she told the crowd. They laughed. She wasn't entirely joking. The Pueblo Revolt of 1680 — when her ancestors expelled Spanish settlers — is the framework through which she understands governance: not as an inherited right, but as an inherited responsibility. She's also been sober for 30 years, something she addresses openly on the stump, tying her personal history directly to her policy push for more behavioral health funding and rehabilitation centers statewide.
Her platform hits the expected notes — clean energy transition, raising the minimum wage above New Mexico's current $12, earlier literacy programs, healthcare access — but her delivery is less stump speech, more lived experience. She raised a daughter, Somah, alone. She attended 13 schools before high school graduation, the child of a Naval Reserve mother and a Vietnam-decorated Marine father, both lifelong Republicans who didn't discuss politics at dinner. That biography shapes how she talks about affordability, safety, and what "public service" is actually supposed to mean. On crime: "We need to address the root causes. Substance abuse disorder is one of those root causes." On the current political climate: "Governors are the first line of defense against the worst policies coming out of this administration."
She's polling about 20 points ahead of Bregman with the June 2 primary approaching, but she's running like the gap doesn't exist — 1,000-mile swings, tight schedules, a campaign playlist that goes from Bad Bunny to Tracy Chapman to protest folk. The real race is November, and she knows it. "We scare them in June and we win in November." Whether New Mexico is ready to make that kind of history is the only question left worth asking.
Read the original at Vogue.
