A smothered green chile plate at one of her favorite restaurants is how Deb Haaland celebrated the day after she won the Democratic Party nomination in New Mexico’s race to elect a new governor.
After lunch Haaland, a Laguna Pueblo woman who is the front runner for November’s general election, took questions from local media in Albuquerque about how she plans to move forward with her campaign success.
“It’s pretty much what we did in the primary election,” Haaland told reporters on Wednesday. “12,000 volunteers signed up on our website during the primary. Our organizers across the state activated those volunteers. It will pretty much be the same playbook. We’re going to travel to every county in New Mexico, many rural communities, and spread our message of education, health care, public safety, and affordability.”
Haaland had a watershed moment during her victory in the state’s first ever semi-open primary, where Independent voters were allowed to cast ballots for one of the two major party candidates. Haaland won with 72% of Democratic Party voters on her side. Her total vote tally sits at 156,861, according to unofficial results, which is roughly 36,000 more votes than the entire Republican Party primary won by Gregg Hull, a former local mayor.
“I’ve known Mayor Hull for a long time, since I was a member of Congress,” Haaland said. “He’s always been a very kind and respectful man, and I appreciate that. I hope it’s the most boring governor’s race in the country.”
Joining Haaland on the ticket as her lieutenant governor will be the outgoing New Mexico Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver.
“I’m excited to have her on the ticket. Look, women are winning in New Mexico. We have a majority female legislature, and so we’ll absolutely work as hard as we can, but I’m excited to have her on the campaign trail with me,” Haaland said. “We’re against cuts to Medicaid. We’re against cuts to SNAP benefits. We’re against things that make New Mexicans sicker, poorer, and hungrier.”
After the press event, Haaland sat down with Cultivating Culture reporter Shaun Griswold for an extended interview about what’s next in her historic run to be New Mexico’s next governor.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Cultivating Culture: Who was the first person you talked to after you got the news you won the election last night?
Haaland: I was already at our event, NBC called it (at 7:16 p.m. MST) which I thought was too early. I looked at my campaign manager Dylan (McArthur), and asked, “How can they call this this early? This is crazy, right?” I always feel skeptical about that because, really? What? Not all the votes had come in. He was the first person I saw when the news came in. We embraced the night.
CC: Any relief for you there? It’s been a couple years since you’ve been on the winning side of a contested election.
DH: Yeah, since I won my congressional seat (in 2018). When I won that primary, I was 15 points ahead of my closest opponent, and that was a (seven) person race. And so that was kind of cool. It’s always nice to win. It’s nice to know that, and to feel that all of your hard work paid off. And we worked really, really hard. I kept my mantra, “We’re not taking anything for granted.” All of my team embraced that, and we just worked hard. It was joyful work for the most part. You get to talk to New Mexicans, you get to travel all over the state and hear from people about their lives a little bit more, and it’s very moving.
CC: That joy was pretty present last night at the election victory event. A lot of people mentioned they hadn’t seen the Historic Old Town Plaza like that before. You created an event and an environment that nobody had experienced. Plus, your procession with mariachi was pronounced, because it’s a Pueblo woman taking prominence in the center of the plaza. Was that intentional?
DH: It was my idea. I said we should have it in Old Town because when I think about the plaza, the town sprung up there. If you look at all these old communities, and there’s some here in this neighborhood, there were lots of little hamlets of groups of houses. And they always had a plaza in the middle of those houses. It was always a gathering place for people. In my Pueblo communities like the villages in Laguna, they all have plazas where people come together, and there’s houses that encircle the plazas. And it just seemed to me like it was very much a historic kind of community space. And it just made sense to me. Then we were all kind of like, “We don’t know if we can have it here. What is permitting like?” We had to explore all that kind of stuff because you needed permits to be able to have an event there. But we did it.
CC: Did you envision this idea before the planning started?
DH: Yeah, I had the idea. It was several months back. Then my team embraced it. I was happy about that, I thought it was nice. I thought it was still rather intimate, honestly.
CC: Can you estimate how many times you filled up your water bottle during the past year since you started your campaign?
DH: You know what, that’s a good question. I can start counting. I can count how many times I fill up a water bottle in a week and we can multiply that. You’ll notice I never use a one-use plastic bottle.
CC: What are your thoughts around running against other candidates who have to share a position, or at least some understanding, on tribal sovereignty? Even your general election opponent Gregg Hull can share on the topic from his experience as mayor of Rio Rancho and has to speak on it since it is one of your strongest positions.
DH: I’m happy that he understands it. When I first got to Congress people would come in my office, different representatives from organizations or tribes and say, “Thank you so much. We don’t have to explain to you what these issues are, you already know and understand.” I’m happy if he knows and understands those issues and the foundational cases on Indian law, like the Indian Child Welfare Act. Those are all important policies and legislation that guide our relationships with tribes. I’ve had opportunities, especially at the Interior, because we oversaw the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and the Bureau of Indian Education. I feel confident about my ability to talk on those issues.
CC: Can you discuss some of the stakeholders you would need to convene to the table when you get the discussions to move your public health care option?
DH: Of course, the legislature, Speaker Javier Martinez, and the folks there. I think that’s where I’ll start because it’s something the legislature will have to be a part of. In this primary, I probably had 20 round tables with healthcare professionals, doctors, nurses, IT people who work in hospitals. It was important that we heard their voices, and so we’ll do more of that as well. But I think the conversations will start with their legislation.
CC: Do you plan to invite any type of private equity that controls health care assets?
DH: Right now, I think I’ll start with the legislature, quite frankly. It’s something that we need to do, and we can hash out some opportunities, and a path forward, and take it from there.
CC: President Donald Trump is somebody you bring up a lot in your campaign, is your campaign and your platform positioning itself as a blueprint for how a blue progressive state can push back, hold against, or pretty much work and operate under President Trump’s administration for the next couple years?
DH: Yes, it’s kind of all the above. We need to push back. I feel really confident that we can work hard enough to send Ben Ray Lujan back to the Senate, and our congressional members back to the House. They know their constituencies, they know how to win. Whatever I can do to help, I’ll do that. But it’ll be important for us to win the House back and have a stop on some of the things that this administration is doing.
CC: Do you have any plans now that you are the Democratic nominee to talk with any other governors from other blue states?
DH: I’m sure I’ll have lots of conversations with some of the other governors.
CC: Is that gonna be part of how blue states can move forward under this current administration for the next couple?
DH: I’m sure we will compare notes and those kinds of things. All our states are different. New Mexico’s so unique. But last night, for example, I got a call from Governor Hobbs from Arizona, she called me almost immediately after I was declared the winner. We’re neighboring states, we share the Navajo Nation. We’ll be in contact a lot.
CC: Are you gonna position any policies or positions around artificial intelligence within the state government?
DH: I feel that it’s imperative, honestly. I think AI can be an amazing, helpful tool. I think it can also be misused. I’m not a big tech person, but it doesn’t mean I can’t get folks who know and understand these issues inside and out. I’ll find those people. Yes, I think we need to take some positions on it, namely to protect our kids.
CC: Any personal standards or practices around AI that you want to share?
DH: I prefer not to use it. But you search for something on your phone, and it uses AI whether you’re asking it to or not. We’re inundated already with artificial intelligence. If you have a device, it’s on there. Sometimes we don’t have a choice. The Facebook case, for example, where Attorney General Raul Torres won against Facebook, I think lawsuits like that are important. For me, it’s about protecting our kids, and protecting the integrity of how our kids learn. They need to be able to learn on their own. They need to feel confident about their reading skills, their math skills, the things that will really help them as adults to prosper. We can have all the help in the world from computers, but there is an educational journey that lights a fire in students, and I want to see that with every student.
CC: In 2026, is it revolutionary to have empathy?
DH: Sad to say, I wish it weren’t, but sometimes I feel like it is. But that’s all I have, you know what I’m saying? I’m going into this because I genuinely care about people. I know that people need help. People don’t feel heard. They feel no one cares about them. Case in point, we went to Grand Summit, a rehab center. These are people who are getting well and learning to live sober lives, away from substance use. Over and over they said, “Thank you for caring about us. Thank you for being here. We’re so grateful.” I walked with them to the polls. People of New Mexico deserve to have a government that cares about them. And that’s what I’ll do.
