Dem NM governor nominee Haaland raises another $3.4M in recent filings

Former U.S. Interior Secretary and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Deb Haaland’s latest campaign filings show she has raised roughly $3.4 million over the last several months, nearly four times as much as her Republican opponent Gregg Hull. 

Still, Hull, a former Rio Rancho mayor, has seen increased donations in recent weeks, including after a poll late last month suggested the race is closer than expected.

Haaland’s campaign contributions, reported in a voluminous Monday filing to the New Mexico Secretary of State’s Office, show she has maintained her fundraising advantage with 50 days remaining until the Nov. 3 election.  The most recent reporting period captured activity between June 28 and Sept. 7. 

The Democrat, a former U.S. congresswoman who has a national profile after becoming the nation’s first-ever Indigenous cabinet secretary during Joe Biden’s presidency, hailed the filings in a statement Monday evening as proof of her grassroots support. 

“I know firsthand how hard people work to earn every paycheck, and I am deeply grateful for everyone who shares my vision for New Mexico,” she said.

In total, Haaland has raised more than $17.3 million from 446,000 individual contributions and spent nearly $13.8 million on her campaign. Over the last three months, she spent roughly $2.3 million, according to her filings. 

Hull reported a little over $930,000 in the most recent period, which represents roughly half of the approximately $1.9 million he’s raised over the course of his campaign. 

Still, Hull has seen an increase in donations in recent weeks, along with a large spike in financial contributions on Aug. 30, which is when the Albuquerque Journal released a poll of likely voters, 43% of whom said they planned to vote for the Republican compared to 49% for Haaland. 

The survey, which showed 8% of voters undecided, struck observers as a closer-than-expected race, including Brian Sanderoff, the president of Albuquerque-based Research & Polling Inc., which conducted the poll. 

Sanderoff told the Journal that the poll shows the race is “narrower than many people expected, including me,” but that Hull still had an “uphill battle” to defeat Haaland. 

The day the poll was published, Hull received roughly $51,500 from 146 donors. That marked his single-largest fundraising day in the most-recent reporting period.

Since the poll was released, Hull has raised nearly $2,100 a day. In the period before the poll, between June 28 and Aug. 30 he raised nearly $1,200 a day, according to a Source NM review. 

Hull did not respond to Source NM’s request for comment Tuesday, but he previously defended his fundraising shortfall compared with Haaland as reflective of his campaign strategy, which he said is focused on in-state campaigning and courting New Mexico-based donors. 

In the most recent filings, 1,862 of 1,925 donors to his campaign — roughly 97% — listed New Mexico addresses. 

Of roughly 75,000 donors who gave to Haaland this reporting period, a little more than 13,000 are from New Mexico, according to her filings.