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Former U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland (Laguna Pueblo) has become the first Native female governor in a historic victory in New Mexico.
KUNM’s Jeanette DeDios (Jicarilla Apache and Diné) reports.
Hundreds gathered at Route 66 Casino to witness history being made as Haaland gave her victory speech.
Haaland pointed to the significance of holding the celebration on Pueblo land.
“I remember carrying water from the community spigot and playing outside from sunrise to sunset, spending time in my grandfather’s cornfield, helping him irrigate. And just off this road, my grandmother was taken away to boarding school, yet we are still here.”
She previously represented New Mexico in Congress and later served as interior secretary in the Biden administration. During her time there, she created the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative.
U.S. Interior Sec. Deb Haaland listens to testimony about the Indian boarding school experience during a session in Anchorage, Alaska in 2023. (Photo: Matt Faubion)
Haaland pledged to pursue stronger public education, repair the troubled Children, Youth, and Families Department of New Mexico, address violent crime and fentanyl, and expand access to healthcare.
“New Mexicans are tired of having to travel hours outside of their communities just to access basic health care. I will create a path toward universal healthcare. ”
Haaland will replace term-limited Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, D-New Mexico, on January 1.
Mary Peltola checks in with her supporters Tuesday night while waiting for the final results. (Photo: Matt Faubion / Alaska Public Media)
It remains to be seen if Alaska’s Mary Peltola (Yup’ik) will also make history along with Minnesota’s Peggy Flanagan (White Earth Band of Ojibwe). If elected, Peltola would join Flanagan as the first Native American women to serve in the U.S. Senate.
As Rhonda McBride from our flagship station KNBA reports, the race is too close to call.
Out of Alaska’s 400 precincts, only a handful remain uncounted, mostly in the remote villages of Western Alaska.
As of early Wednesday morning, Peltola had a narrow lead of less than 0.3%, or 626 votes.
Throughout election night, the lead rocked back and forth between Peltola and U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, who President Donald Trump endorsed and campaigned for in Alaska last month.
To find out who will win, Alaskans will likely have to wait for its ranked choice voting process to play out. In Alaska, voters can rank candidates in order of preference, but a candidate must receive more than 50% of the vote to win.
Ranked choice votes will not be tabulated until November 18. If no candidate has a majority, the candidates with the fewest votes will be eliminated – and their votes will go to the voter’s next choice. That process could take several rounds until one candidate has more than half of the vote.
Despite the controversy over two candidates in the race named Dan Sullivan, the second Dan – a retired teacher from Southeast Alaska known as Petersburg Dan, or Double Dan – received less than 2% of the vote. Combined, he and the fourth candidate in the race, Republican Gerald Heikes, have a 4% share of the vote.
Right now, it appears the second choices of the voters for these two candidates could determine whether Peltola unseats Sen. Sullivan.
Another closely watched race in Alaska involved another Native candidate, Bill Hill (Athabascan), who is attempting to unseat U.S. Rep. Nick Begich, R-Alaska.
As of early this morning, Begich had a sizeable lead of almost 20,000 votes, or about half of the vote.
Claire Valdez, left, with New Yorkers United for Child Care and UAW Region 9A in December 2025. (Courtesy Claire Valdez / Facebook)
Native candidates are marking significant victories in the 2026 midterm elections.
Claire Valdez (Ysleta del Sur Pueblo) won New York’s 7th congressional district to become the first Native woman elected to Congress from the Empire State.
Incumbent U.S. Rep. Sharice Davids (Ho-Chunk), D-Kansas, secured another term representing the state’s third congressional district.
Davids was first elected in 2018 alongside Haaland.
And in Oklahoma, U.S. Rep. Josh Brecheen (Choctaw), R-Oklahoma, won reelection to the state’s second congressional district.
The victories come during an election cycle featuring a record number of Indigenous candidates running for public office.
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