Deb Haaland, ex-Interior secretary, is running for governor of New Mexico

Deb Haaland, the former secretary of the Interior who was the first Native American to lead a Cabinet agency, on Tuesday announced a bid for governor of New Mexico.

Haaland, a Democrat, previously served as a member of Congress from the state. She is widely seen as a favorite to succeed Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, who is not running again in 2026 because of term limits.

Haaland, 64, a member of the Laguna Pueblo, would be the first Native American woman to serve as governor of a state. Her campaign described her as a “35th generation” New Mexican.

She is one of the first top alumni of President Joe Biden’s administration to announce a run for office since Democrats lost power, and the first significant candidate to declare a bid for governor in New Mexico.

In a video announcing her campaign, Haaland leaned on her working-class background to make the case that she could relate to struggling families and help them out. She has said that she started a salsa-making business to support herself as a single mother, and at times relied on food stamps. New Mexico is one of the poorer states in the country by some metrics, and economic insecurity and issues such as drug use and addiction are at the forefront of voters’ priorities there.

“Why can’t our families pay our bills?” Haaland asked in the video. “Crime. Poverty. Homelessness. Addiction. They will keep pulling us down if we do the same things and expect a different result.”

She said she would focus on lowering costs, making it easier for families to afford rent and buy homes, and on preventing crime. She will travel the state in the coming weeks, she said, to seek voters’ ideas and hear their stories.

“When creative, hardworking New Mexicans want to grow a small business like I did, government should make it easier, not harder,” Haaland said.

New Mexico is a reliably Democratic state that has not backed a Republican for president since 2004, though recent GOP inroads with Hispanic and working-class voters — who account for a significant share of the state’s population — have given the party some reasons for optimism.

Last year, Rep. Gabe Vasquez, a Democrat, hung onto a district in southern New Mexico that was considered a tossup race, and former Vice President Kamala Harris defeated President Donald Trump by 6 percentage points in the state.

The state has seesawed between Democratic and Republican governors in recent decades, with Susana Martinez, a Republican, preceding Lujan Grisham in the governor’s mansion. Still, Haaland will be viewed as a strong front-runner for the job and could deter other Democrats from entering the race.

“Among the Democratic base, she’s beloved and well-known across the state,” said Neri Holguin, a New Mexico political consultant for Democrats. “It’s also hard to imagine who else will be able to compete with her ability to fundraise nationally and locally.”

Republicans quickly targeted Haaland as too liberal for the state and criticized her history of pushing to curb fossil-fuel drilling.

“We’re tired of being last in everything good,” Amy Barela, the state Republican Party chair, said in a statement. “Another Democrat in the governor’s mansion spells disaster: more jobs gone, crime on the rise, endless failures and New Mexicans left in the dust — again.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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