Haaland won New Mexico’s open governor’s seat, returning home after serving as the first Native American Cabinet secretary in U.S. history.
Deb Haaland, 65, is an enrolled member of the Laguna Pueblo. She chaired the New Mexico Democratic Party, won a U.S. House seat in Albuquerque in 2018, and in 2021 became the first Native American to lead a Cabinet agency as President Biden’s secretary of the interior — the department that manages the nation’s public lands and its obligations to tribal nations.
As interior secretary she pushed renewable energy on public lands and created a unit to investigate the deaths of Native American boarding-school children. Now she will run a state where tribal nations are central to daily life and politics.
New Mexico has never had a Native American governor. Watch her work on oil and gas — the state’s budget depends on it, and her climate record will be tested at home first.
Fast facts
- Age: 65
- Party: Democratic
- Office: Governor of New Mexico
- State: New Mexico
- Previous job: U.S. secretary of the interior (2021–2025)
- Called by AP: verified in the desk’s 12:00 a.m. ET check, Nov. 4
Part of the Zark News Election 2026 winners profile series. Winners are listed as called by the Associated Press.
