Deb Haaland, the former congresswoman and interior secretary, will be the nation’s first female Native American governor after she cruised to victory in New Mexico on Tuesday night, according to The Associated Press. Ms. Haaland shrugged off a challenge from a Republican who had rejected negative campaigning.
Ms. Haaland’s victory extended Democratic dominance in the state, which has historically swung between parties but has lately pulled left. En route to her historic win, Ms. Haaland pledged to make New Mexico a capital of resistance to President Trump’s administration.
“Donald Trump thinks he knows something about New Mexico,” Ms. Haaland said at a campaign event in Portales, a small city on the state’s far-eastern flank, in September. “We need to make life more affordable for New Mexicans because we have a president in office who has no clue how we live.”
Ms. Haaland, a member of the Laguna Pueblo, is beloved for breaking barriers. She has racked up a series of firsts since the moment she entered politics: the first Native person to chair a major political party in New Mexico, one of the first two Native American women elected to Congress and the first Native American cabinet secretary, a position she took during the Biden administration.
Her campaign drew national support, helping her raise about $20 million during the primary and general elections. That was more than 10 times what her opponent, Gregg Hull, managed.
Mr. Hull, the former mayor of Rio Rancho, a fast-growing suburb of Albuquerque, was hoping to beat the odds and become the first Republican to win a statewide race in a decade. But in the end, his campaign was perhaps most notable for what he refused to do: go low. In today’s era of bitter and personal political attacks, Mr. Hull vowed to be a nice guy.
It was a striking contrast to Ms. Haaland’s Democratic primary opponent, Sam Bregman, the district attorney of New Mexico’s most populous county, who attacked Ms. Haaland relentlessly. But Ms. Haaland drubbed Mr. Bregman by nearly 45 points.
Ms. Haaland, who takes over from Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, a term-limited Democrat, will have no shortage of pressing and persistent problems to tackle. New Mexico’s education system is among the nation’s worst performing, and its rates of violent crime and drug overdoses are higher than just about anywhere else.
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