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- By Levi Rickert
Breaking News. Former Interior Secretary Deb Haaland (Laguna Pueblo) officially launched her campaign for Governor of New Mexico today. The announcement follows weeks of speculation about Haaland’s next move after leaving her position as Interior Secretary on January 20, 2025. A former congresswoman, Haaland brings a strong background in public service to the race.
In her launch video, Haaland emphasized issues such as the cost of living and public safety while underscoring the importance of listening to communities across New Mexico. She also highlighted her experience in securing resources for small businesses, creating clean energy jobs, funding water projects in rural areas, and leading efforts to clean up pollution across New Mexico’s landscapes—both as a congresswoman and as Secretary of the Interior.
“Lowering costs, making rent and housing affordable, strengthening our schools, and preventing crimes so that you feel safe raising a family here. The solutions are there if we are fierce enough to choose them,” Haaland said in the launch video.
Haaland is seeking to replace New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham, who is term-limited. She will need to win the June 2, 2026 primary election and the general election on November 3, 2026.
Haaland has a distinguished record of high-profile leadership and has consistently broken barriers throughout her career in public service. If elected, she would make history as the first Native American woman to serve as a governor in the United States.
Haaland will travel across New Mexico on a campaign launch tour, engaging with residents to hear their struggles and ideas for community-driven solutions.
Haaland is a 35th-generation New Mexican, a member of the Pueblo of Laguna, a small business owner, and a working mother who has lived paycheck to paycheck. She has served as a congresswoman and, for the past four years, as the United States Secretary of the Interior.
Like many New Mexicans, Haaland has faced hardships, including homelessness and financial insecurity. She helped cover her child’s preschool tuition by volunteering at the school, relied on food stamps to put meals on the table, and turned to Planned Parenthood for essential healthcare. Through resilience and determination, she overcame these challenges, achieving more than three decades of sobriety and building a distinguished career in public service.
With strong bipartisan support, Haaland became the first Native American cabinet secretary in U.S. history. As Secretary of the Interior, she led nearly 70,000 federal employees and worked tirelessly for New Mexicans, securing and supporting thousands of jobs, spearheading historic clean energy development, and overseeing hundreds of millions of dollars in state investments. She played a key role in protecting 13.5 million acres of New Mexico land and collaborated with rural communities and Tribal Nations to safeguard natural resources for fishing, ranching, recreation, and more. Growing up in a rural community, Deb understood the challenges these areas face and worked to secure clean water and essential resources for New Mexico’s small towns and villages.
As a single mother raising her child, Somah, Deb took catering jobs and ran a small business producing and canning salsa. As a tribal administrator for San Felipe Pueblo and a member of the Laguna Development Corporation Board of Directors, she successfully advocated for policies that supported small businesses while protecting the land and water. Her commitment to making a difference for working New Mexicans led her to voter registration efforts and, ultimately, a historic run for Congress.
In 2018, Deb became one of the first Native American women elected to Congress. She championed key issues for New Mexicans, including expanding clean energy job opportunities, securing billions in pandemic relief for small businesses and restaurants, increasing broadband access, addressing the crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous women, and protecting New Mexico’s public lands. She built a reputation for bipartisan collaboration, garnering more cosponsors for her legislation than any other freshman House member in 2019. She introduced six bills that were signed into law by President Donald Trump—one of the highest numbers among House members in that Congress.
Raised in a military family, Deb attended 13 public schools before graduating from Highland High School in Albuquerque. At 28, she began her college journey, earning a Bachelor’s degree in English from the University of New Mexico and later a J.D. from UNM Law School.
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