SANTA FE, New Mexico — Deb Haaland has been elected governor of New Mexico, defeating Republican Gregg Hull on Tuesday, November 3, and becoming the first Native American woman ever elected governor of a U.S. state. The Associated Press declared Haaland the winner with only an estimated 41 percent of the vote counted, calling the race at about 8:40 p.m. Mountain Time, less than two hours after polls closed at 7 p.m. In the AP's latest count, with 2,159 of 2,204 precincts reporting and an estimated 98 percent of the vote in, Haaland held 412,834 votes to Hull's 308,315 — 57.2 percent to 42.8 percent.
Source: Associated Press
Haaland, 65, is a citizen of Laguna Pueblo and watched the results arrive at the Route 66 Casino Hotel in Albuquerque, on Laguna Pueblo land, alongside supporters, fellow candidates and Democratic Party of New Mexico officials. A former U.S. secretary of the interior and former congresswoman, she had already broken two national barriers: in 2018 she became one of the first two Native American women elected to Congress, and under President Joe Biden she became the first Native American to serve as a U.S. Cabinet secretary. She is New Mexico's third straight female governor, and with running mate Stephanie Garcia Richard — the state's commissioner of public lands — she will lead the state's first all-female elected executive team.
“I've stood up to Donald Trump before and I'm ready to do it again,” Haaland told the crowd, pledging to fight the Trump administration's efforts to cut services such as Medicaid and SNAP, according to Source New Mexico's report of her victory speech. “Right now, New Mexicans are working hard, doing everything they're supposed to, and yet we still struggle to get ahead. I believe that no matter where you come from, how much money you have, or what challenges you've faced, every New Mexican deserves the chance to thrive.”
From a community spigot to the governor's office
Haaland roots her politics in her own upbringing. “I remember carrying water from the community spigot and playing outside from sunrise to sunset, spending time in my grandfather's cornfield, helping him irrigate,” she told supporters. “And just off this road, my grandmother was taken away to boarding school … yet we are still here.” As interior secretary she oversaw the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative, which sought to address that system's legacy of generational trauma. “I spent years working on my sobriety, raised a child in poverty as a single mom, registered voters in a rez car along dirt roads and in dust storms to eventually serve in the halls of Congress and become the first Native American to serve as a U.S. Cabinet secretary,” she said.
She succeeds Democratic Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham, who is term-limited after first winning the office in 2018 — the same seat succession she once performed in Congress, where Haaland took over Lujan Grisham's 1st Congressional District seat in 2018. Haaland soundly defeated Bernalillo County District Attorney Sam Bregman in the June Democratic primary and handily out-fundraised Hull, raising a record $20.5 million, according to the Albuquerque Journal; her finance reports were so donor-heavy that the documents, routinely thousands of pages, at times crashed the New Mexico Secretary of State's website, Source New Mexico reported.
The contest, and the agenda
Hull, 60, is a businessman and three-term former mayor of Rio Rancho, New Mexico's third-largest city, who ran with state Senator David Gallegos of Eunice. He criticised Haaland for backing out of a televised debate — her campaign said the broadcaster's preferred date conflicted with a prior commitment to meet farmers in southern New Mexico — and ran on a phased-in repeal of the state's personal income tax, paid for with New Mexico's oil-driven budget windfall. The contest was otherwise relatively cordial, and Haaland thanked Hull for running a “respectful” campaign. Hull had not conceded at the time of the call, telling supporters, as the Santa Fe New Mexican reported, “we concede nothing until we see every vote come in and every vote is counted,” noting that Bernalillo County, the state's most populous, had not yet reported.
Haaland campaigned on boosting affordability, creating a public-option health-care plan and overhauling the state's troubled child welfare agency. In September she pledged to sign an executive order immediately on taking office imposing a statewide moratorium on new large-scale data-center projects until the Legislature passes guardrails for the developments. Speaking to reporters after her speech, she said she hoped to work closely with Democratic Texas Governor-elect Gina Hinojosa, noting Democrats' national wins: “Democrats did quite well in the Senate races, we won back the House, Texas has a Democratic governor-elect now. We'll just move forward.”
New Mexico is a majority-minority state where Native nations hold deep political and cultural weight, and its governor controls decisions on public lands, oil and gas leasing, water and renewable energy that reach far beyond its borders — all areas Haaland ran the federal side of as interior secretary. For freight and trucking, Albuquerque sits at the junction of Interstates 25 and 40, one of the Southwest's great crossroads, and her promised data-center moratorium and health-care public option will be early tests of how her governorship treats growth, energy and working families. Her win was one of a wave of historic firsts in the 2026 midterms, on a night voters delivered Democrats control of Congress.
What happens next
Haaland takes office on New Year's Day, January 1, 2027. She has less than two months to build a cabinet and write a budget proposal before the Legislature's 60-day session opens in January — the same compressed transition every New Mexico governor-elect faces. Her first pledged act is the data-center moratorium executive order; beyond it, her public-option health plan and child-welfare overhaul require legislation, and her promise to resist federal cuts to Medicaid and SNAP sets up an early confrontation with the Trump administration she explicitly campaigned against. Results remain unofficial until New Mexico's state canvassing board certifies them.