‘Strength of Matriarchs’: New Mexico’s Deb Haaland Set to Become First Native American Female Governor | 2026 US midterm elections

The road to Isleta Pueblo, a Native American tribal community just 20 minutes south of downtown Albuquerque, New Mexico, is dotted with campaign signs. Among the many names of candidates vying for next week’s midterm elections and tribal elections later in November, there is one who is poised to make history.

Deb Haaland is set to become the first Native American female governor of the United States when voters cast their ballots on November 3. A recent poll gives him a comfortable lead over his opponent, Republican Gregg Hull, a businessman and longtime mayor of the city of Rio Rancho. His candidacy also speaks to the growing power of the Democratic Party in the state, where Democrats control the Legislature, hold all the top offices and have adopted progressive policies, such as universal child care, that have been praised across the country.

Haaland, who is a member of Laguna Pueblo, has been a rising star in national politics since 2018, when she was elected to Congress alongside a wave of progressive freshmen lawmakers, including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib. In the House of Representatives, Haaland sponsored legislation such as the Not Invisible Act, focused on the epidemic of missing and murdered Native Americans. After Joe Biden was elected president in 2020, he appointed Haaland to head the Interior Department, making her the first Native American to lead a cabinet agency. In this role, Haaland oversaw the formation of a missing and murdered unit within the Bureau of Indian Affairs and advocated for the protection of culturally significant lands, including Chaco Canyon and Bears Ears.

After years in Washington, she returned to her home state, running for governor with a promise to expand the social safety net, improve access to health care in rural communities, and protect natural resources and sacred lands. In recent weeks, she has gained support from prominent Democrats, including Barack Obama, while Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg have visited the state to defend her.

His campaign has generated enthusiasm among New Mexico’s large indigenous community, which makes up more than 12 percent of the state. Many see themselves reflected in her and express enthusiasm for a candidate who has promised to protect the state’s water, investigate the legacy of New Mexico’s Native American boarding schools and prioritize cases of missing and murdered indigenous people.

For Haaland, the historic nature of the election isn’t lost on her — but the final weeks of campaigning have been so hectic that she sometimes forgets she’s about to hit a major milestone.

“Sometimes I forget the fact that I would be the first indigenous woman. We’re in the middle of a statewide campaign and we’re very busy and we’re trying to be everywhere at the same time,” she said in a recent interview. “But I recognize that for some people who feel like they’ve never been represented – I’m really grateful to have this opportunity…I just hope I can help people see that hard work still means something. That anyone can be a leader, no matter where you’re from or how much money you have or don’t have.”

Haaland has throughout her campaign invoked her experience as a single mother navigating the Medicaid, WIC and Snap programs before attending law school in his 30s. Early in her career, she ran a small business selling salsa, and when she was named Secretary of the Interior, Haaland was still paying off her student loans. During a recent housing roundtable with Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Haaland described trying to apply for a special home loan available to Native Americans while raising her young child.

“I think there’s a lot of enthusiasm,” said Janice Lucero, an Isleta Pueblo member and co-founder of the Isleta Pueblo Voters Alliance, speaking from her farm on the Isleta reservation. “I think Deb actually has a lot of influence on the younger generation. She’s able to really reach out to these people and really hear the concerns of a lot of communities.”

Jade Begay, who goes by Tesuque Pueblo/Diné, lives in New Mexico and served as director of Native American engagement for Kamala Harris’ 2024 presidential campaign, agrees.

“I think Indigenous women are particularly excited – as well as Indigenous youth,” she said. “They know she’s qualified for this job. They know we can trust her as the leader of New Mexico. And we know we can trust her as someone who will be on the front lines for New Mexico and defending us against the Trump administration.”

Record number of indigenous candidates

Haaland is running in a particularly important election cycle for Indigenous candidates. According to Advance Native Political Leadership, a record 358 Native candidates ran or are running in local, state and federal elections across the country this year.

In addition to seeing the first indigenous woman elected governor of a U.S. state, the country could see its first indigenous woman elected to the Senate, if former Alaska Congresswoman Mary Peltola or Minnesota Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan win their races.

“The first thing that made this really possible was seeing Deb Haaland was seeing Sharice Davids (the Native American congresswoman from Kansas) on a national level,” said state Sen. Angel Charley, who is Laguna/Zuni/Diné and entered politics in 2024 when she ran to represent a district that includes Laguna and Acoma Pueblos but had never been held by a Native woman before.

“I strongly believe in the power of matriarchs,” said Ahtza Dawn Chavez, who is Diné/Kewa Pueblo and executive director of NM Native Vote, a Native-led group focused on getting out the vote, who endorsed Haaland shortly after announcing her candidacy. “We were very committed to the idea of ​​having an indigenous governor, and in particular an indigenous female governor. »

Although Native Americans have made significant gains in political power in recent years, it has been a long road to get there. Native Americans have only had the right to vote across the United States since the 1960s.

In New Mexico, Native Americans gained the right to vote in 1948, when Miguel Trujillo, a World War II veteran and member of the Isleta Pueblo tribe, sued the state.

“My mother was a Republican for a very long time, believe it or not,” Haaland said. “There was a Republican candidate who came to the Winslow Indian Camp, where they all lived, my grandparents working on the railroads because they were part of the assimilation policies,” she explained, referring to federal policies that forcibly relocated Native Americans and aimed to assimilate many of them into white society through labor. This candidate, she said, “registered everyone in Laguna in the Indian camp as Republican.”

When Haaland ran for lieutenant governor in 2014, in a race ultimately won by Republicans, her mother changed her registration. “I have worked very hard to help people like my mother understand that our values ​​as indigenous people align with those of Democrats,” Haaland said. “When I think about who is in the White House right now and the horrible policies that are being put in place that are making New Mexicans sicker, poorer and hungrier, those values ​​don’t align with us.”

Getting out the indigenous vote

Nationwide, many Native voters continue to have difficulty voting due to the long distances between polling places on rural reservations, a lack of Postal Service-served addresses from which to mail ballots, and provisions in some states preventing Native people from using tribal ID cards to register to vote.

In 2023, New Mexico became the first and only state in the country to implement an updated Native American Voting Rights Act, which gave tribes greater input into voting locations and redistricting.

Charley adds that, especially since the Covid-19 pandemic, many tribes and Native organizers have adopted new measures to help voters get to the polls — including sending text alerts when polls are open, coordinating trips to polling places, and hosting community events, rather than going door to door in rural areas.

While local groups such as the Isleta Pueblo Voters Alliance and NM Native Vote have focused on securing the Native vote in New Mexico, national coalitions such as the Native Organizers Alliance and Advance Native Political Leadership have sought to organize Native voters nationally.

Haaland herself became involved in national politics in 2012 when she served as Native American voting director in New Mexico for Barack Obama’s campaign. “I’ve been an election activist for a very long time. And I was always trying to help my grandmother and my aunts and my mother get out to vote,” Haaland said.

That organizing work saw remarkable success in 2020, when an influx of voters from Navajo and Hopi reservations in Arizona saw the long-red state vote for Biden.

Despite this victory, Begay says working on the Harris/Walz 2024 campaign highlighted for her “how under-resourced and neglected Indigenous voter engagement is.”

She also adds that while she has seen deep support for Haaland among Indigenous women, “my criticism and observation is that Indigenous men are not as enthusiastic.”

At the Isleta Pueblo Voters Alliance, Lucero and his colleagues published a voting manual that includes worksheets for thinking about a candidate’s platform — including ranking issues such as housing and health care, but also the candidates’ approach to land and water, language and culture, and the crisis of missing and murdered indigenous peoples.

“We have to think about the future and what’s at stake,” Lucero said. “How are we going to continue to maintain our lifestyles? »