Deb Haaland Wins New Mexico Governor Race, a First for Native American Women

Deb Haaland just made history again. The Democrat has won the New Mexico governor's race, defeating Republican Gregg Hull, the businessman and longtime mayor of Rio Rancho, according to The Guardian. When she takes office, Haaland becomes the first Native American woman to govern a US state.

Haaland, 65, is a member of Laguna Pueblo and already had a trailblazing résumé before Tuesday's win. She was the first Indigenous person to serve as a cabinet secretary, leading the Interior Department under Joe Biden. In 2018, she and Kansas representative Sharice Davids became the first Native American women elected to Congress, arriving in Washington alongside progressive freshmen like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib.

Her path there wasn't a straight line. Haaland was a single mother navigating Medicaid, WIC and food stamps before heading to law school in her 30s. She worked as a tribal administrator at San Felipe Pueblo, became the first woman elected to the Laguna Development Corporation board, and ran Native American vote outreach in New Mexico for Barack Obama's 2012 campaign. After a losing lieutenant governor bid in 2014, she became the first Native American woman to lead a state party.

New Mexico is a fitting stage for the milestone — Native Americans make up 12% of the state's population, and the state has been ahead of the curve on Indigenous voting rights. New Mexico's Native Americans won the right to vote in 1948, when Miguel Trujillo, a World War II veteran and Isleta Pueblo member, sued the state. In 2023, it became the first and only state to implement an updated Native American Voting Rights Act, giving tribes a bigger say on polling locations and redistricting.

The win lands in the middle of a broader surge. A record 358 Indigenous candidates ran for local, state and federal office this cycle, per The Guardian, including former Alaska congresswoman Mary Peltola and Minnesota lieutenant governor Peggy Flanagan, both bidding to become the first Native American women in the US Senate. Nationwide voting rights for Native Americans are only about six decades old, making the gains of recent years all the more striking.

Haaland's victory now puts her in the governor's mansion in Santa Fe, where she'll steer a state with one of the country's largest Indigenous populations — and a national profile that keeps growing.