Former Interior Secretary Deb Haaland has won the Democratic primary in New Mexico’s race for governor, NBC News projects.
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Haaland enters the general election to succeed term-limited Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham as the front-runner in a state where no Republicans hold statewide office. If elected this fall, she would become the first-ever Native American woman to serve as governor.
Haaland defeated Sam Bregman, the Bernalillo County district attorney and the father of Chicago Cubs star third baseman Alex Bregman for the Democratic nomination.
In November, she will face off against the winner of a Republican primary that includes Rio Rancho Mayor Gregg Hull, Doug Turner, a businessman and a former gubernatorial candidate, and Duke Rodriguez, a former secretary of the state’s human services department.
Haaland has emphasized the potentially history-making aspect of her campaign, highlighting her ancestral history and running several ads in the Diné language.
She served as former President Joe Biden’s interior secretary for the entirety of his four years in office. Previously, she was the first Native American woman elected to Congress, where she served one term representing the Albuquerque area. She also chaired the state Democratic Party.
In an interview with NBC News prior to her victory Tuesday, Haaland signaled she would lean into a general election message targeting President Donald Trump and his policies.
“We’re in a horrible era right now with our federal government, and people see that the policies that Donald Trump is inflicting on New Mexicans are having a very negative effect all over the state,” Haaland said.
“Everybody deserves to have health care, deserves to eat healthy food,” she added. “They need somebody who understands what it’s like, and they want somebody who knows how to find solutions to these issues.”
New Mexico is among the states with the highest enrollment in both Medicaid and federal food assistance benefits. Both programs faced massive cuts in the “One Big, Beautiful Bill” Trump signed into law last year.
Meanwhile, Haaland has spoken glowingly of Biden, even as he continues to be viewed negatively after dropping his re-election bid in 2024.
She told NBC News in an interview that he is “absolutely an asset” in her campaign and praised him as a “true partner” to New Mexico and Indigenous people across the U.S. and has often discussed her accomplishments as interior secretary related to conservation and wind and solar projects in the American Southwest, though none of her ads mention him by name.
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