Geoff Bennett:
As have been reporting, yesterday’s election brought a number of historic firsts. In New Hampshire, Chris Pappas became the first openly gay man elected to the U.S. Senate. In Colorado, Melat Kiros became the first Generation Z woman elected to Congress. And, in Georgia, Keisha Lance Bottoms became the first Black woman elected governor.
Among those making history is Deb Haaland, who will become the first Native American woman to serve as governor of any U.S. state. Haaland previously served as interior secretary under President Biden and was one of the first Native American women elected to Congress.
Governor-elect Deb Haaland joins us now.
Congratulations on your victory and welcome back to the “News Hour.”
Deb Haaland:
Thank you so much. Thank you.
Geoff Bennett:
You made history, of course, but voters are also expecting results. So how will you balance the symbolism of this victory with the responsibility now of governing a state that has faced persistent challenges? So many people are dealing with the high cost of living, persistent challenges with poverty, education, access to health care.
How are you planning to deliver tangible results in New Mexico?
Deb Haaland:
Absolutely. Thank you so much for the question and for having me.
And, of course, very proud to be the first Native American woman governor in the history of our country. That wasn’t why I was running, though, of course. I have so much experience, having served at the highest level of government as the secretary of the interior, where I managed a work force of 70,000, an $18 billion annual budget.
And, yes, like the rest of the country, our state is facing steep Medicaid cuts; 89,000 people can be kicked off the Medicaid rolls come the beginning of the year, people losing their SNAP benefits. This is all the result of the Trump bill that passed earlier this year.
And so, of course, we want to make sure that we’re stepping up, the legislature and myself continuing to fill in the gaps that our governor now has worked to fill in. We know that prices are getting higher due to so many of the tariffs and the war in Iran making gas prices higher. New Mexicans are paying higher costs for everything.
And so we want to put more money in the pockets of New Mexicans, enhancing the child tax credit, the working families tax credit, continuing to move our clean energy forward, which we know will lower utility costs. So there’s a lot of work to do, but I’m confident that we can get there.
Geoff Bennett:
Democrats had a strong election night across the country. How much of your victory, in your view, was a rejection of President Trump and his approach, and how much of it was an endorsement of your own vision for New Mexico?
Deb Haaland:
Thank you so much.
Well, we currently have a Democratic governor here in New Mexico. Generally, every eight years — our governor is termed out the end of this year. Every eight years, the seat flips back to Republican.
And New Mexicans realized that yes, we needed to keep going on the trajectory that we are going on. We have universal childcare. We have early childhood education for every child in New Mexico. And those are things that New Mexicans feel have made their lives better.
And so I want to ensure that we can enhance those programs, expand them across the state, so that every New Mexico family has an opportunity to participate. Universal childcare, it’s an economic driver all over New Mexico. It creates jobs and helps parents to know their kids are safe while they’re at work.
So it’s a win-win for our state and the people of New Mexico, and we will continue down that path.
Geoff Bennett:
Yes.
I wonder, what have you learned from your time in Washington, both in Congress and in the Cabinet, about what government gets right and what it gets wrong, and how does all of that shape your approach to governing?
Deb Haaland:
Well, I will tell you, I feel like I always do the right thing when I listen to stakeholders, when I have the people at the table whose lives would be affected by the decisions that I make.
I did that when I was at the Interior Department, and I will do it again. The most successful projects that we got across the finish line, transmission lines, offshore wind projects, protecting millions of acres of public lands across the country, that was all done with the idea that we need to bring people to the table early, that we should act with full transparency.
So I intend to be transparent as the governor of New Mexico. I intend to bring stakeholders together to tell us what they need and what is best for their communities. New Mexico is different anywhere you go. None of our communities are the same, the northeast, the northwest, the north, the south, Central New Mexico.
There’s so many different communities with different needs. And so we’re going to make sure that we’re listening and that we can do what’s best for our state.
Geoff Bennett:
Yes. I hear you when you say that you did not run for the sole goal of making history. But you have broken barriers before, as we mentioned, the first Native American woman — among the first Native American women elected to Congress, the first Native American Cabinet secretary.
Does this victory feel different, serving as governor?
Deb Haaland:
Well, I mean, look, this is my first successful statewide campaign. New Mexico’s the fifth largest state, hundreds and hundreds, thousands of miles of rural roads that we drove on all throughout this campaign. So I feel like I worked really, really hard for this victory.
We raised the funds to hire organizers. We had them on the ground all over the state. We worked very hard and didn’t take anything for granted. So, I feel that hard work still means something in our state and in our country, and I was really proud of the success that we had.
Geoff Bennett:
New Mexico governor-elect Deb Haaland, thanks again for speaking with us. We appreciate it. And congratulations.