04/11/2026
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1571607791663554&id=100064430450013
Deb Haaland was elected governor of New Mexico tonight, becoming the first Native American woman ever elected governor of any state in American history. Not the first in New Mexico, and not the first in the Southwest -- the first in 250 years of American governors. Haaland is a 35th-generation New Mexican and a citizen of the Laguna Pueblo, whose people have lived on the land that is now New Mexico since long before there was a United States -- and who will now, for the first time, see one of their own lead the state.
She defeated Republican Gregg Hull by double digits. New Mexico made history of a second kind tonight, too: it became the first state ever to elect two women of color to its highest offices, with Stephanie Garcia Richard, the former public lands commissioner, as Haaland’s lieutenant governor. Haaland will also be the state’s third woman governor in a row.
Haaland has spent her career being the first. In 2018 she and Sharice Davids of Kansas became the first two Native American women ever elected to Congress, and in 2021 she became the first Native American Cabinet secretary in the nation's history, confirmed to lead the Interior Department -- the same agency that for generations carried out the removal and forced assimilation of Native children.
"A voice like mine has never been a Cabinet secretary or at the head of the Department of Interior," she wrote at the time. "Growing up in my mother's Pueblo household made me fierce. I'll be fierce for all of us."
As secretary Haaland opened a first-of-its-kind federal investigation into the abuse of Native children at government-run boarding schools, forcing a reckoning with a history the country had spent a century avoiding -- one that had reached her own family, when her grandmother was taken as a child to one of those schools.
She raised her daughter as a single mother, relied on food stamps, and built a small salsa business to make ends meet. "I'm the only candidate who has been a single mom," she told voters during the campaign. "I'm the only candidate who worked across the aisle in Congress and got bills signed into law."
Haaland celebrated on Tuesday night before hundreds of supporters at a hotel on Laguna Pueblo land west of Albuquerque. “New Mexico’s brightest days are ahead of us,” she told the crowd, “because I believe in a New Mexico that works for all New Mexicans.” Of the generations of Native Americans who never lived to see a night like this one, she has said simply: “It is our time.”
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To show children what history looks like when it's made, "What Your Ribbon Skirt Means to Me: Deb Haaland's Historic Inauguration" tells the story of Deb Haaland's historic swearing-in as the first Native American to serve as a U.S. cabinet secretary, as seen through the eyes of a young Indigenous girl watching it unfold, for ages 5 and up at https://bookshop.org/a/8011/9780316430036 (Bookshop) and https://amzn.to/3U3Zbes (Amazon)
For adult readers, Deb Haaland is also the author of a new memoir "A Voice Like Mine" at https://bookshop.org/a/8011/9781250434227 (Bookshop) and https://amzn.to/4q7osim (Amazon)
For children's books about pioneering Native American women throughout history, visit our blog post, "A Celebration of Native American and Indigenous Mighty Girls," at https://www.amightygirl.com/blog?p=10365
For an uplifting picture book about another Native American political leader, Cherokee Nation Chief Wilma Mankiller, we recommend "Wilma's Way Home: The Life of Wilma Mankiller" for ages 6 to 9 at https://www.amightygirl.com/wilma-s-way-home
For books for children and teens that celebrate women's contributions to politics today and in the past, visit our blog post, “Remember the Ladies: 25 Children's Books on Women in Politics” at https://www.amightygirl.com/blog?p=11162
For more inspiring stories of pioneering girls and women throughout history, you can sign-up for A Mighty Girl's free email newsletter at https://www.amightygirl.com/forms/newsletter
