NICE TIME: Deb Haaland Running For New Mexico Gov!
Yay yay nice time!
Former Congresswoman and Interior Secretary Deb Haaland announced yesterday that she’s running for governor of New Mexico in 2026, and instantly became the odds-on favorite because New Mexico is very much a blue state and because she’s Deb Haaland, for heaven’s sake. We bet she won’t knuckle under like a common trillion-dollar tech giant and let Donald Trump rename the state New America or anything.
If Haaland goes on to win the election, she’ll be the first Native American woman elected governor of any state, just as in 2021 she became the first Native American appointed to serve as a Cabinet secretary. (Yeah, yeah, Herbert Hoover’s veep, Charles Curtis, was a member of the Kaw Nation and veeps are supposedly in the Cabinet, so “secretary” is a significant distinction there. Stop nitpicking, and besides, Hoover sucked.)
Here’s Haaland’s announcement video, and you know what we liked best about it because we are big nerds? Watch and see if you can guess!
Did you guess? Right at the top of her list of achievements, after mentioning that she was a booster for small businesses, she emphasizes her legacy of advancing clean solar energy in New Mexico, and followed that by pointing out that she also helped create jobs in the state plugging disused oil wells and doing environmental cleanup. In a campaign landscape where Donald Trump keeps reminding us how much he hates clean energy and will demand ever more fossil fuel pollution, we bet Haaland’s message will go over well. Crom knows it did our wintry sun-starved heart good!
Haaland pointed out that her own sometimes difficult experiences as a single parent and in reaching “35 years of sobriety” had taught her that “here in New Mexico, struggle makes you fierce,” a theme she also used in her successful congressional campaigns. Then it was on to the practical kitchen-table issues: jobs, energy, small business, as well as an acknowledgement that
New Mexico is rich in tradition and spirit, rich in natural resources, so why can't our families pay our bills? Crime, poverty, homelessness, addiction. They will keep pulling us down if we do the same things and expect a different result.
Haaland’s announcement was not the least bit surprising; in January, a Haaland spokesperson said heck yes she’s putting a campaign team together and getting ready for a shot at the governorship. New Mexico’s current governor, Michelle Luhan-Grisham, is term-limited and can’t run again. Despite rumors that he might want to run for governor, New Mexico’s senior US senator, Martin Heinrich, said earlier this year he likes the Senate and plans to stay there. Good on him, since he was just reelected to a third term in November.
If you’re keeping track (we weren’t, not particularly), Haaland can also add another very tiny “first” to her résumé: She’s the first member of Joe Biden’s presidential team to seek elective office since That Other Person took office, though it seems likely we’ll also be seeing more of folks like former Transportation secretary Mayor Pete Buttigieg or Biden’s HHS secretary Xavier Becerra, who could campaign for any state or national office simply by saying “I was followed by Robert F Kennedy Jr.” and waiting for the laughter to subside.
We also bet Lujan-Grisham may seek some higher office herself as her term comes to a close, what with all the abortion-rights protecting, free school-lunch approving, and free in-state tuitioning for state college Lujan-Grisham and the state Lege have brought. In September, near the halfway point of her term, Lujan-Grisham’s approval rating slid somewhat, to 45 percent positive, but as political science analysts pointed out, that’s almost exactly the same as every other second-term New Mexico governor from either party. (And yes, even the Land of Georgia O’Keeffe has a gender gap: Women were far more enthusiastic about Lujan-Grisham’s job performance — by a 10-point gap — than men. Makes sense; men never got why those O’Keeffe postage stamps were so popular either, though some felt compelled to lick them anyway.)
Republicans will probably scrape up some Trumper, or collection of them, for the primaries, but they’re a year away and nobody has any earthly idea who President Musk might allow Trump to endorse. We predict that whoever the Republican candidate is, they’ll suck, but Trump will hold a rally with them anyway, where he’ll announce new tariffs on New Mexico’s imports to the USA.
[New Mexico Political Report / NBC News]
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BREAKING: House Republicans have released their budget resolution. They are aiming to cut Medicaid by at least $880 billion, and cut SNAP by at least 20%.
I rely on both these programs. I was living for a time on a food budget of about $30 a week. Without Medicaid, I would still be sleeping one or two hours a night, walking the floor and screaming from the pain of sciatica.
I'm scared. I'm most frightened that democrats will enthusiastically negotiate how much more to impoverish me.
I am in NM and was proud to start my recurring contribution yesterday. Her team was really smart -- I've been getting emails for a couple of weeks that are just informative and supportive. It matters a lot to me to have someone build a relationship before they ask for cash, and it also makes me think Ms. Haaland might have some skill at coalition building.