When critics point at where her money comes from, Deb Haaland has a ready answer. She has received more donations from New Mexicans than any other candidate for governor, she says, even after setting out-of-state money aside.
That is true. So is this: as of last month, nearly 65 percent of the record $19.2 million Haaland has raised came from donors outside New Mexico, according to an Albuquerque Journal analysis.
Two-thirds of the money in the most expensive governor's race in New Mexico history was written from somewhere else.
The gap
Her Republican opponent, former Rio Rancho Mayor Gregg Hull, has raised roughly $2.5 million. Haaland has raised nearly eight times that, and the figure does not count what national Democratic groups are spending on her behalf.
The Democratic primary alone, between Haaland and Bernalillo County District Attorney Sam Bregman, passed $17 million in candidate spending, the most expensive primary in state history.
Out-of-state donors in Haaland's reports include musicians Bonnie Raitt and Jackson Browne.
The maximum checks
New Mexico caps contributions to a governor's race at $12,400 per donor per election. Haaland has reported 28 donations at the maximum. Hull has reported 13.
Haaland's contributions above $12,000, as reported by the Las Cruces Sun-News, include:
Devon Energy Production Company. Occidental Petroleum Corp. New Mexico Gas Company. Motorola Solutions. The New Mexico Federation of Labor. The IBEW PAC Voluntary Fund. The UFCW Active Ballot Club. The NEA Fund for Children and Public Education. The Mescalero Apache Tribe. Stahmanns Inc. And Global Financial Strategies Group, LLC.
Devon and Occidental are two of the largest oil producers in New Mexico's Permian Basin. Haaland ran the U.S. Interior Department, which oversees drilling on federal land, much of it in that same basin.
A former Interior Secretary is taking the maximum from the companies that drill on Interior's land. That is legal. It is also a question voters can ask, and so far nobody has asked it on the record.
The race
Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham is term-limited. The election is Nov. 3. Hull is running a statewide, town-by-town campaign and has said he wants to be the most visible governor in state history. No former mayor has been elected governor of New Mexico since Clyde Tingley in 1934.
The questions
For the Haaland campaign: What share of your donors, by count rather than dollars, live in New Mexico? Did Devon Energy or Occidental Petroleum ask for anything, or meet with you, before or after their contributions? Will you recuse from decisions affecting them if elected?
For the Hull campaign: Who are your 13 maximum donors, and what share of your money comes from outside New Mexico?
For Devon Energy and Occidental Petroleum: Why did you give the maximum to Haaland, and did you also give to Hull?
Those answers belong in the public record before Nov. 3.
This story is built from public reporting and campaign finance reports through Oct. 20, 2026: the Albuquerque Journal, the Las Cruces Sun-News, Source NM and PBS's New Mexico In Focus. The 65 percent figure is the Journal's analysis as of September; the Inquirer has not independently recalculated it from the Secretary of State's filings. Questions were sent Oct. 20 to the Haaland campaign, the Hull campaign, Devon Energy and Occidental Petroleum. Responses will be added with a dated update. Disclosure: Pesach Lattin also publishes ADOTAT and The Arizona Inquirer and is principal of ANIA, a privately held, independent intelligence firm that is not a government agency. The New Mexico Inquirer does not endorse candidates. Reader-supported. No paid placement in editorial. Tips and corrections: [email protected] or 505-932-9060.