Dispatch: Amid federal turmoil and "cruelty", Deb Haaland launches 2026 campaign for NM governor
Haaland vows to be vanguard for civil rights in NM against “billionaires occupying the White House”
On Thursday evening, arriving in a parade of lowriders cruising into the National Hispanic Cultural Center’s courtyard, Deb Haaland stepped out of a pearl white Chevy Impala convertible, waving to her supporters. As a citizen of Laguna Pueblo, Haaland was the first Native woman elected to Congress and then the first Native person to lead the Department of Interior as secretary. And as of Tuesday, she is campaigning to be elected the first Native woman state governor.
Packed into the center’s conference room, more than 800 people attended Haaland’s campaign launch rally in Albuquerque, New Mexico. She began her speech by greeting friendly, familiar, and new faces, then introduced her platform.
“It will mean standing up for elders, veterans, children, marginalized communities, and so many more in our state against the billionaires occupying the White House,” said Haaland.
Haaland expressed that lowering the cost of living, expanding affordable housing, building trust in law enforcement, protecting sacred lands and the environment, protecting reproductive healthcare, uninhibited addiction treatment, supporting teachers and education, and safeguarding civil rights were priorities for the state, especially in the face of federal turmoil.
“I will tell you that governors will be the first line of defense against the struggles ahead,” said Haaland. “In the midst of cruelty and chaos our entire country faces, we must look ahead and decide, who do we want to be? How do we fight for the place we call home?”
Haaland’s bid for governorship in 2026 has come during President Donald Trump’s dizzying third week in office, which has already kicked off a series of chaotic executive orders instituting mass deportations, challenging birthright citizenship for both Native Americans and children of immigrants, and creating the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) led by billionaire Elon Musk.
On Wednesday, during a House oversight hearing on Bureau of Indian Education (BIE) schools, which serves around 45,000 Native students across 183 schools, GOP Colorado representative Lauren Boebert and others launched into questions about alleged “waste, fraud, and abuse” spending of BIE and Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) funding. They also asked about legitimate and genuine efficiency and effectiveness challenges, such as severe school repair and maintenance delays and underfunding, which they framed as inefficient and wasteful federal workers and spending practices. The Trump administration’s new DOGE agency is supposedly investigating waste, fraud, and abuse across the federal government, slashing billions of dollars in contracts and instigating mass layoffs of career federal workers. And per a Trump executive order, “Expanding Education Freedom and Opportunity for Families” signed Jan. 29, the Secretary of the Interior is charged with seeking alternative schools for students attending BIE schools, including possibly allocating BIE federal funding to those alternative school options.
Native panelists clarified that while BIE and DOI had management and efficiency issues, lack of funding was a central need for their schools.
For the most part, Trump is following the agenda laid out in Project 2025, a far-right authoritarian policy guidebook aimed at shredding the federal government’s administrative state, which will have untold consequences for Indigenous, Black, poor, migrant, women, queer, and trans people as well as the welfare state that provides services like healthcare, social security, food programs, reproductive health, and much more. No Frontiers has previously reported on how Project 2025’s scheme could upend the federal Indian trust responsibility as Trump dismantles the federal government.
[READ: “They want to completely terminate the trust responsibility”and “At a glance: Project 2025’s Indian Country agenda”]
As representative Boebert’s time ran out to question the Native panelists, she concluded: “I want to have policies as well that liberate you all to produce from your lands as well, whether that’s energy production or food or have the water to grow that food.” Project 2025’s Indian Country agenda centered on fossil fuel development on tribal lands, not even mentioning the “chronic underfunding” and billions of dollars in unmet infrastructure and program needs that tribes face nor the recommendations to remedy these social, economic, and cultural obstacles.
If Haaland is successfully elected governor of New Mexico, she may have many new unmet needs to address if Trump and Musk’s DOGE agency continues unleashing mass funding and staffing cuts, not just across the Department of Interior and BIA but also across each department that has Indian programs upholding federal Indian trust responsibilities.
Haaland acknowledged that there is vast uncertainty across the state. “When you’re struggling or don’t feel safe, you can’t wait for long-term solutions that may or may not ever come,” said Haaland. “You need someone in the halls of power who works for you.”
I am in support of Deb Haaland's bid for the seat of New Mexico State Governor. She has the knowledge of the needs of our state, the politics, the demographics, and resources. There is just so much more that has to be done to help our children get better education to plan for the future and meet the economic needs of our state.
As a long time New Mexico resident I look forward to voting for Deb. I was happy to vote for my districts representative, Teresa Leger Fernandez, but I would like to have helped put the first Native American woman in the House of Representatives. And if you have seen our other representatives, Melanie Stansbury and Gabe Vasquez, you know New Mexico stands for the rights of all people. Que Viva New Mexico!