Deb Haaland, the former interior secretary under Joe Biden, has been elected governor of New Mexico and will become the first Native American woman to govern a US state.
Haaland, a Democrat, defeated her Republican opponent Gregg Hull, 60, a businessman and the longtime mayor of the city of Rio Rancho.
Haaland, 65, had already broken boundaries as the first Indigenous cabinet secretary. Her victory in New Mexico, where Native Americans make up 12% of the population, comes as Indigenous voters are asserting more power in elections nationwide.
Haaland, who is a member of Laguna Pueblo, has been a rising star in national politics since 2018 when she was elected to Congress alongside a wave of progressive freshmen lawmakers, including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib. After Biden was elected president in 2020, he named Haaland to lead the interior department.
Haaland and Bottoms both (edit: and Gina Hinojosa! And Amy Acton! fuck yeah) winning governor’s races on the same night is really cool to see.
In the US, the way power is shared between the Federal and State governments gives State Governors a huge amount of influence over their constituents’ lives, by the policies they set and the things the choose to do and not do, including cooperating with the federal government. They kinda get lost among the Congressional races, but IMO they’re a bigger deal than Congress.
The idea of entrusting that much power to such candidates would have been, if not unthinkable, then not often thought of, not that long ago. It feels like we really have moved forward a little, even if it feels like we’re falling back at the moment. Like maybe, we haven’t quite fallen all the way back and lost all the progress we’ve been making.