On Tuesday, June 2, 2026, a “semi open primary” election will take place in New Mexico. Voters will select the major party candidates to appear on the general election ballot in November. This is the first semi-open primary in New Mexico history, meaning that independents can choose either the Republican or Democratic primary to vote in, without having to register with that party.
There are two Democrats and three Republicans running to be New Mexico’s 33rd governor. The Democrats are former Biden Interior Secretary Deb Haaland and Bernalillo County District Attorney Sam Bregman. The Republicans are former Mayor Greg Hull, public affairs and strategic communications executive Doug Turner and Duke Rodriguez, the CEO of Ultra Health, one of the largest marijuana companies in New Mexico.
On May 10 and then on May 16, the Albuquerque Journal published endorsements that were like night and day in the Democratic Primary for Governor. The May 10 endorsement was of Sam Bregman by Jeff Tucker the former Albuquerque Journal Opinion editor and a member of the Journal’s Editorial Board. The May 16 endorsement was by Democrat and former New Mexico State Senator and former three term Albuquerque Mayor Marty Chavez.
JEFF TUCKER ENDORSEMENT COLUMN OF SAM BREGMAN
MAY 10, 2026
BY JEFF TUCKER, JOURNAL COLUMNIST
“OPINION: BREGMAN IS THE MUCH BETTER HOPE FOR DEMOCRATIC SUCCESS IN NOVEMBER
I’ve always said you don’t want to get into a battle of wits if you’re unarmed.
If KOAT-TV’s “Conversations with Candidates” had been an actual debate between Sam Bregman and Deb Haaland, the moderator would have stopped it after the third round of questions.
After watching the 30-minute program that aired April 30, I see why Haaland has been knock-kneed scared to debate her Democratic gubernatorial opponent.
Haaland, a figurehead of the radical left, is uncomfortable on her feet, often unable to answer questions with anything other than memorized talking points.
Bregman, Bernalillo County’s district attorney, is a successful courtroom litigator who’s made a living thinking on his feet.
The most illuminating portions of the KOAT forum were the questions Bregman and Haaland were allowed to ask each other through station news anchor Miguel Marquez.
Bregman asked about the infamous jet ride from Santa Fe to Washington, D.C., in September 2014 that landed Haaland in the Jeffrey Epstein case files released by the U.S. Department of Justice earlier this year.
“We have said consistently that I did not fly on Jeffrey Epstein’s plane,” Haaland responded. “That is an outright lie.”
Wait, what? Play that back. Was it all just a mushroom trip aboard a magic carpet?
Oh yeah, that’s right, it wasn’t “Jeffrey Epstein’s plane,” it was a jet chartered by one of Epstein’s companies and personally arranged by Epstein and his longtime pilot. There were apparently no teenage flight attendants in tank tops, no Warhead wrappers in the ashtrays, no big “JE” painted on the jet’s tail fin. Who could have possibly known about the Epstein connection?
The best defense Haaland has is that she’s habitually unaware, hence why I’ve affectionately nicknamed her “Know-nothing Haaland.”
Moreover, as Haaland was intent to point out on KOAT, it was her 2014 gubernatorial running mate, Gary King, who contacted Epstein’s people and requested a private jet to a D.C. fundraiser. Haaland apparently didn’t raise any questions along the way about a possible association with the convicted sex offender and just went along for the ride like a lemming over the cliff, blissfully unaware of who had arranged the flight for her and King and their staff members in an oblivious exercise of “Don’t ask, don’t tell.”
“It was not my campaign, it was Gary King’s campaign, and I believe that Gary King has done numerous interviews that have stated that fact,” Haaland continued in the KOAT forum, which was a sharp departure from the traditional debates local TV stations host every gubernatorial election year, and which Haaland has declined this year. “And so, I’ve said that time and again.”
Bregman also asked Haaland about her friendship with disgraced former Congressman Eric Swalwell of California, but Haaland didn’t mention her former House Judiciary Committee colleague in her response.
Another illuminating moment occurred later when Bregman, again through the forum host, asked why Haaland reported a net worth of zero dollars while Interior secretary despite being paid more than $1 million over six years as a member of Congress and Cabinet secretary.
Forbes estimated Haaland’s net worth at zero dollars in 2021 after reviewing her financial disclosure and public records. She told the “Today” show in 2019 she didn’t even have a savings account. The year before her election to Congress in 2018 she collected about $9,300 of unemployment from New Mexico, Forbes reported.
Just last September, the New Mexico Taxation & Revenue Department placed a $7,477.60 lien on her property. According to the Sept. 16 claim notice publicly available on the Bernalillo County Clerk’s website, Haaland owed gross receipts taxes for filing periods between June 30, 2013, and Dec. 31, 2017. Penalties and interest on the back taxes exceeded $3,200.
The county released the lien on Nov. 13, 2025, after Haaland paid the eight-year-old back taxes, records show.
Haaland explained on KOAT she earned an annual congressional salary of $174,000 for her one full two-year term in the U.S. House, but blew through her meager wages like a sailor on shore leave.
“I did have expenses,” she explained, somewhat. “I had to buy another house or pay rent when I was in Washington, D.C., and so, you know you do have living expenses even though you make a salary from the federal government.”
As far as her New Mexico home valued at more than $1 million, Haaland apparently had a terrible lawyer when she got divorced in February 2025 after a three-year marriage to her longtime partner.
“It was public that I got divorced and we sold our house,” she said on KOAT. “The house was not under my name, it was under my former husband’s name. It was his house. And so, these are all issues that I’m happy to discuss with anyone at length because I am very transparent about how I operate and how I put myself forward.”
It’s good that Haaland is happy to discuss her finances and judgment at length, because her indigency in her 60s and questionable ethics are sure to linger through November if she prevails in the June 2 Democratic primary.
She’ll need to spend the next six months explaining how she landed herself in the Epstein files, on Swalwell’s friends list, and on the dark side of the entire Bregman family after doxing their homes on her campaign website.
It’s still unclear if Haaland approved the publication of Bregman family property information on her campaign website, and what corrective actions have been taken other than deposting the property information that included the Assessor Office’s parcel ID number of the Albuquerque home of Bregman’s 88-year-old mom.
Haaland didn’t address the doxing during the KOAT forum. I’m about 50-50 on whether Know-nothing Haaland knew anything about it in advance. She is a little hands-off, more a spiritual figurehead than a political strategist.
Bregman said during the forum that Haaland hasn’t apologized. I’d like to see Bregman’s mom cut a TV ad demanding an apology from Haaland herself, not just a statement from Haaland’s out-of-state paid spokesperson.
Another takeaway from the KOAT forum was how uncomfortable, stiff and rehearsed Haaland remains in front of the camera, even after decades on the political stage.
Bregman, on the other hand, exudes confidence. He’s comfortable in front of a camera or audience and shows a willingness to engage in exchanges and consider alternate perspectives. You can see the wheels spinning in Haaland’s head as she combs through progressive talking points before answering a question.
The Haaland campaign has learned all too well from the 2024 Biden campaign about how the 46th president effectively ended his half-century political career with a single disastrous debate four months before the 2024 presidential election. The safer play for the Haaland team is to give her an Ambien, rely on millions of dollars of out-of-state donations to fund multiple daily TV ads, and keep the sleepwalking candidate away from cameras and reporters as much as possible.
New Mexico doesn’t need a governor who lacks awareness, financial literacy and never learned the value of saving money. We need a winner, like our last two governors, Michelle Lujan Grisham and Susana Martinez, not a lifelong community organizer with a checkered past and no bank account.
Additionally, if Haaland is coronated governor, primarily due to her identity, it would fuel the winds of secession in southeast New Mexico like a fireball. They’ll never stand for her radical left policies like the Green New Deal, trust me. I don’t know what they’d do in the Oil Patch, but it would be a political train wreck.
Electing Haaland and implementing her neo-Marxist policies would rip this state apart along the length of the Rio Grande. Red counties east of the river would become more red, more disenfranchised, more ostracized and more disconnected from the Metro region, culturally and commercially. If it’s mathematically possible, the state as a whole would drop from 50th to 51st in so many categories, particularly involving crime, poverty and population growth.
Bregman, a centrist with strong law enforcement credentials, has the potential to unite divided regions from Chama to Las Cruces with common sense solutions to access to healthcare, fixing CYFD, improving education, more renewable energy, fixing crumbling roads across New Mexico and preventing more building collapses in Albuquerque, and addressing stagnant population growth in a state whose best days appear in the rearview mirror 60 years ago when they built real stuff in Albuquerque.
As chair of the Governor’s Organized Crime Prevention Commission, he brings 25 years of experience as a prominent criminal defense attorney and eight-plus years as prosecutor. He’s played in both leagues, like his MLB son, and is the leading voice on violent juvenile crime reform. I’ll take that, thank you, and so will the first responders and tribes that have endorsed him because of his record.
“At a time when Native Americans across the country are demanding justice and representation, Sam is the only candidate who has consistently shown up and delivered,” the governor of Sandia Pueblo said last year when the Pueblo endorsed Bregman, an endorsement that made national news and exposed divergent views about Haaland that had been dormant for years among our Native communities.
Bregman is the best mainstream candidate New Mexico Democrats now have, the best they can offer in November to retain the Governor’s Office. Haaland spells trouble for Democrats and could make November’s election competitive for Republicans. She’s just too divisive. And then there’s the train wreck if she wins.
All the above and more is why I wholeheartedly endorse Sam Bregman for governor in the Democratic primary.
FORMER MAYOR MARTIN CHAVEZ ENDORSEMENT COLUMN OF DEB HAALAND
May 16, 2026
BY: Martin J. Chavez, former Albuquerque mayor and a New Mexico state senator.
OPINION: HAALAND’S RECORD OUTSHINES THE RHETORIC
I was disappointed by New Mexico newcomer Jeff Tucker’s endorsement of Deb Haaland’s primary opponent, Sam Bregman, in the upcoming gubernatorial election. Tucker spent most of his time talking about why he doesn’t like her and very little about why her opponent will make a better governor.
I know both candidates well and as one of two elected New Mexico Democratic National Committee national committeepersons, I naturally pay close attention to elections. I’ve known Bregman since shortly after he moved to New Mexico from Washington, D.C. He was my law clerk and if he is the Democratic nominee, he will have my full support. I’m writing not to attack him but to share why I support Haaland.
Tucker repeats the Bregman attacks on “Know-Nothing Haaland,” as Tucker refers to her. But far from knowing nothing, Haaland was one of the most successful state Democratic Party chairs in our history. Under her leadership, Democrats regained control of the House of Representatives and she finished with the state party in the black. She is made of steel. She then took on a strong field of Democrats to win election to Congress where she served with honor. We can see her work there: small businesses that stayed open because of emergency COVID loans; safe military housing at Kirtland, Cannon and Holloman Air Force Bases; a new Tohajilee school is under construction; and the NewSpace Nexus that supports New Mexico innovation — all are results of Haaland’s congressional work.
She did all of that until President Joe Biden tapped her to be secretary of Interior, where she delivered energy transmission lines that bring in new revenue to New Mexico, the Eastern New Mexico rural water project, a new bridge on the Mescalero Apache Nation and expanded protections for water. That doesn’t happen if someone “knows nothing.” It certainly doesn’t happen that a single mother graduates from law school without knowing anything, and anyone who thinks so hasn’t been to law school.
As most folks know, I lost a gubernatorial election to Gary Johnson so I know a bit about statewide campaigns. They are a bit like forced marriages in that the gubernatorial nominees run with whomever the voters elected as the party’s lieutenant governor in the primary.
Tucker and Bregman have frequently attacked Haaland for flying on a plane chartered by Jeffrey Epstein when she was a candidate for lieutenant governor in 2014.
Flight arrangements are handled by the gubernatorial candidate, Gary King, not the lieutenant governor nominee, Haaland. She has never flown on an Epstein-owned plane and it’s hard to believe she would have known who financed any particular flight. Lieutenant gubernatorial candidates show up when requested, basically do what they’re asked, and last minute searches for planes to fly are the norm, not the exception. Haaland has been unfairly attacked on this issue.
I’ll never forget her confirmation hearing where she was questioned about saving bears in Yellowstone and her questioner asked her, “What were you thinking” and Haaland responded simply, “Congressman, I imagine at the time I was caring about the bears.” That’s Haaland in a nutshell — focused, absolutely caring and compassionate. It’s her life story.
There’s so much at stake for New Mexicans this year. Fully funded daycare, preservation of paid college tuition for New Mexico students, support for organized labor, economic growth that supports working families, public safety that is comprehensive as opposed to punitive, opposition to the hate that spews hourly from Washington — all of these are on the table. It’s Deb Haaland’s commitment to the issues that are reflected in her overwhelming lead in the polls. Her campaign hasn’t been about attacking her opponents; rather, she has focused in a positive manner on our future. She will make a great governor for all New Mexicans and I’m proud to support her.
https://www.abqjournal.com/opinion/opinion-haalands-record-outshines-the-rhetoric/3041491
COMMENTARY AND ANALYSIS
The Albuquerque Journal is known to be a very conservative, Republican leaning publication. Likewise, opinion column writer and member of the Journal’s Editorial Board Jeff Tucker is also known to be very conservative who advocates the Republican agenda. It was surprising that he made an endorsement in the Democratic Primary.
What Tucker called a “wholehearted” endorsement of Sam Bregman for governor in the Democratic primary was nothing more than a very backhanded endorsement that likely did Sam Bregman more harm than good in the Democratic party as well as with Independents. Tucker explains his endorsement of Sam Bregman in a lackluster way by saying “Bregman is the best mainstream candidate New Mexico Democrats now have, the best they can offer in November to retain the Governor’s Office.” Tucker made absolutely no appeal to Independents who will be voting in the state’s first time “semi open primary.”
Tucker’s endorsement of Bregman was nothing short of an extremely offensive, full frontal assault, on Democrat Deb Haaland to disparage and discredit her intelligence, her character and her candidacy. Tucker recites a litany of criticisms against Haaland including her failure to debate, that she is in the Epstein files reporting a plane ride she took 12 years ago and posting Bregman’s and his family’s residents. Tucker recites a litany of Haaland’s personal financial problems and failures including collecting unemployment in the past, not having a savings account, her claim that her net worth was “zero” dollars when she was Interior Secretary, that she had not paid property taxes but later did, that she lost the award of a home in a divorce and that she had difficulty living on a $174,000 year congressional salary. Tucker takes issue with Haaland’s intelligence calling her “No nothing Haaland.”
Tucker makes the over the top assertions that Deb Haaland is “a figurehead of the radical left” and “ if Haaland is coronated governor, primarily due to her identity, it would fuel the winds of secession in southeast New Mexico like a fireball. … Electing Haaland and implementing her neo-Marxist policies would rip this state apart along the length of the Rio Grande. Red counties east of the river would become more red, more disenfranchised, more ostracized and more disconnected from the Metro region, culturally and commercially.” Tuckers claims are bogus on many levels. They reflect a totally warped misunderstanding of a very diversified state, how independent its people think and are and adapt and historically get along politically and culturally.
Tucker proclaims “Bregman is the best mainstream candidate New Mexico Democrats now have, the best they can offer in November to retain the Governor’s Office. Haaland spells trouble for Democrats and could make November’s election competitive for Republicans. She’s just too divisive. And then there’s the train wreck if she wins.” REALLY? REALLY? His assertions are one nasty little stretch of the imagination to the point of being laughable. Tucker simply ignores how effective the New Mexico State Legislature and the Courts are at keeping New Mexico Governor’s in check, including both Governor’s Susana Martinez and Michelle Lujan Grisham.
The truth is that Haaland appears to be uniting democrats in all quadrants of the state giving her commanding leads in the polls. The blunt reality is that Haaland is in fact the closest thing New Mexico has to national figure within the Democratic Party as is evidenced by her double digit commanding lead in the polls as well as her over $11 million in fundraising outpacing all funding raising by all 5 of her opponents combined. It’s very doubtful that any one of the 3 Republican candidates for Governor will be able to defeat Deb Haaland, or Sam Bregman for that matter, come the November 4 general election.
Former Mayor Marty Chavez did a respectful job of defending Deb Haaland and identifying some of the real issues on the table in the race that voters need to concentrate on. Chavez was correct when he wrote in his article the real issues in the race include “fully funded daycare, preservation of paid college tuition for New Mexico students, support for organized labor, economic growth that supports working families, public safety that is comprehensive as opposed to punitive, and opposition to the hate that spews hourly from Washington”. Tucker as well in his article identified the real issues in the race include “access to healthcare, fixing CYFD, improving education, more renewable energy, fixing crumbling roads across New Mexico and … addressing stagnant population growth.” They both should have stuck to discussing and elaborating their candidates positions on the issues.
In the final analysis, endorsements such as Tucker’s and Chavez’s, only make the person endorsed “feel good all over” at the time but likely do not sway very many people, especially with two weeks remaining in an election. Voters would be wise to simply ignore all the endorsements, try to ignore the politcal rhetoric and campaign commercials and concentrate on educating themselves on the candidates and the candidates positions on the issues and vote for the candidates they feel will best serve the people of New Mexico. The postscript provides two separate articles on the Democratic and Republican candidates.
Please vote June 2!
POSTSCRIPT