Deb Haaland wins New Mexico, the first Native American woman ever elected governor

Deb Haaland will be New Mexico's next governor. The Associated Press called the race for the Democrat at 8:40 p.m. Mountain time Tuesday, less than two hours after polls closed, over Republican Gregg Hull. Haaland, a citizen of the Pueblo of Laguna, is the first Native American woman elected governor in U.S. history.

What happened

Haaland, the former U.S. Interior Secretary and congresswoman, beat Hull, a three-term former mayor of Rio Rancho, in the race to replace term-limited Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham. She takes office on New Year's Day, according to the Albuquerque Journal.

Hull had not conceded as of the call. He told supporters "we concede nothing until we see every vote come in and every vote is counted," and pointed out that Bernalillo County, the state's most populous, had not reported yet, the Santa Fe New Mexican reported.

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, who chairs the Democratic Governors Association, congratulated Haaland on "making history as the first Native American woman to be elected governor in the country."

A record of firsts

This is not Haaland's first barrier. In 2018, she and Kansas Rep. Sharice Davids became the first Native American women elected to Congress. In 2021, she became the first Native American to serve in a president's cabinet. At Interior she started a unit to investigate cases of missing and murdered Indigenous people and opened an investigation into the deaths of Native children in federal boarding schools, The Hill reported.

For the record: she is the first Native woman to win a governor's race, not the first Native governor. Oklahoma got there first with two men: Johnston Murray, a Democrat of Chickasaw descent elected in 1950, and Republican Kevin Stitt, a Cherokee Nation citizen elected in 2018, according to an AP correction that set the record straight in 2019.

The campaign

Haaland raised a record $20.5 million, according to the Journal. She promised to keep Lujan Grisham's first-of-its-kind universal child care program and to protect New Mexicans from Trump's policies. She has blamed Trump's cuts to federal safety-net programs for making life more expensive in the state, the AP reported.

Hull ran on a phased-in repeal of the state's personal income tax, paid for with New Mexico's oil-driven budget windfall.

Her win also ends a pattern more than 40 years old. New Mexico had swung between Democratic and Republican governors since 1982, the last time a Democrat (Toney Anaya) won the office with a fellow Democrat already in it.

So what

Winners: Native communities, and Pueblo voters in particular. On Election Day, Santo Domingo Pueblo voters told Source NM that a Haaland win would finally give the pueblos a voice in the governor's office. Working parents, whose free child care now has a governor who campaigned on keeping it. And the union film crews of IATSE Local 480, which endorsed her in October.

Losers: Hull and his income-tax repeal, which now has no path through the governor's office.

What's next

Haaland has less than two months to build a cabinet and write a budget proposal before the Legislature's 60-day session opens in January, the Journal reported.

Sources

• Haaland makes history, bucks state trend by defeating Hull to become New Mexico's next governor (Albuquerque Journal)
• Election night live blog: AP calls governor's race for Haaland (Santa Fe New Mexican)
• New Mexico voters (mostly) ready to make history in governor's race (Source NM)
• Deb Haaland's political rise spurs both inspiration and scrutiny (AP, via Washington Times)
• Haaland to run for New Mexico governor (The Hill, via Yahoo)
• NM Filmworkers Union endorses Deb Haaland for governor (Haaland campaign)
• Oklahoma governor combines Columbus, Native American days (with correction) (AP, via Washington Times)