09/10/2026
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Democrat Deb Haaland Was a No-Show to The Gubernatorial Race’s Only Debate Last Night. Should You Still Vote for Her?
Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez for THE PUGILIST
Oct 9, 2026
Sadly, yes. The alternative, Republican Gregg Hull, is much worse for women, the environment, immigrants, the young, the working class and the poor.
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Last night at 6 p.m., KOB 4, Albuquerque’s NBC television affiliate, aired the only scheduled televised debate in New Mexico’s race for governor. It featured only one candidate. The other was a no-show, and her party’s only contribution to the evening was a schoolyard insult, rebranding the candidate who did show up as “Gregg Dull.”
The candidate who showed up was Gregg Hull, the Republican nominee and former three-term mayor of Rio Rancho, a fast-growing city just outside Albuquerque. The empty podium belonged to Deb Haaland, the Democratic nominee. Haaland, a member of Laguna Pueblo, is a former congresswoman who served as Secretary of the Interior under President Biden. If she wins, she’ll be the first Native American woman to serve as governor of any U.S. state. She has also drawn sharp criticism for accepting large campaign donations from data center interests and lobbyists. The two are running to replace Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, who can’t seek a third term, in the Nov. 3 election.
KOB had warned both campaigns back in August that it would keep Haaland’s podium on set if she flaked. It stood there all evening, without her, and just added to the many reasons I dislike Haaland. That said, I will be voting for her. It might be the way I vote to eat a stale rice cake when it’s the only thing around, but I’ll hold my nose and do it. Why? Because Hull, though polite and, by most accounts, a capable mayor, would be much worse for women, children, immigrants, public services, the environment, renters, the working class, and the poor.
How we got here is a story only a campaign scheduler could love. The day after she won the primary, Haaland said she looked forward to debates. In early September, KOB announced October 8. Her campaign said it had told the station in July that the week wouldn’t work, and it offered October 12, 13 or 14 instead. Hull likes to say he’ll debate “anytime, anywhere.” It turns out that means anytime except October 12, 13 and 14. Then, in late September, Haaland announced she’d skip debates altogether and spend the rest of the race meeting voters face to face. Well, the voters who come to her events.
Both campaigns played scheduling chicken, and somehow only one of them came out looking like the chicken. Haaland leads by six points in the Journal poll and has outraised Hull roughly nine to one. People who are winning at Monopoly rarely suggest starting a new game. I understand the math. Letting Haaland speak is a risk. She’s a mediocre, lackluster public speaker, prone to “ums” and stutters. But New Mexicans still deserved to watch the two people who want to run this state answer the same questions, side by side, sweating under the same lights. She ducked it. Hull is right to say so, and he will, daily, until November 3. This was a choice the Haaland campaign might well live to regret, because it makes her look arrogant, unconcerned, cowardly and entitled, all at once.
Regular readers know I’ve been tough on Haaland in these pages, including on the data center money flowing into her campaign and her “shock” to learn the plane she flew on with Gary King that one time was paid for, for them, by Jeffrey Epstein. I stand by every word. But, goddammit, I’m voting for her anyway.
And this, in a nutshell, is everything wrong with American politics when both parties are shills for neoliberal capitalism.
The menu
For about 45 years, American politics has run on something called neoliberalism. It has nothing to do with “liberal” in politics. It’s an economics term, and the freedom it cares about is the freedom of markets, not people.
Strip away the jargon and neoliberalism comes down to one idea: the market knows best, so government should step aside. That means cutting taxes, especially at the top. Deregulating. Privatizing public services, or at least making them compete like businesses. Treating housing, health care and schools as products, and the rest of us as customers. Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher sold it from the right. Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, Tony Blair and Joe Biden sold it from the slight-left, with a warmer smile and a few social issues thrown in to seem caring. The bill has now come due. We have record income inequality. We have homes owned by investment funds whose managers will never see them, and whose tenants will never be able to save enough to buy a home of their own. And we have hospitals run like hedge funds, partly because some of them are owned by hedge funds.
Neoliberal economics loves the things people hate, because those things make lots of money for a handful of powerful people. War. For-profit health “care.” Tax breaks for billionaires. Data centers that use All The Water and destroy ecosystems. In neoliberalism, money always trounces people, animals, planet, air, soil, water. Bees. Always.
What a lot of us want is a candidate who’ll say plainly that some things shouldn’t be for sale. Public housing that is actually public. Health care that isn’t a subscription with a deductible. Water for people before water for server farms. That candidate isn’t on the ballot this year. Or most years. And when they are, nobody fights harder to defeat them than neoliberal Democrats.
What is on the ballot for governor in New Mexico this year is one right-wing man who believes in the market the way some people believe in horoscopes, and one socially progressive but economically centrist woman who believes the market needs a stern talking-to. I’m holding my nose as I do it, folks, but I’m voting for the talking-to. It isn’t a revolution. It’s a smaller fire. In this economy, with this insane president, I’ll take a smaller fire.
Here’s the difference between Haaland and Hull, as told by the public record.
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The following full breakdown of where Haaland and Hull stand on women, immigration, taxes, health care, rent, schools, land and crime is for paid subscribers. For just $7 a month, less than a fancy coffee, you also get our members-only group chats, commenting privileges during live broadcasts, book giveaways and more. Your support keeps THE PUGILIST independent and in the ring. I keep the basic facts of my stories free, with the deeper dive paywalled — and even then, only for 2 weeks, after which all pieces are free.
