OPINION: Sandia Pueblo endorsement positions Bregman as front-runner in Dem primary

Endorsements typically don’t play pivotal roles in political campaigns, especially when they’re predictable.

But unexpected ones can uplift and energize a campaign, or demoralize and sink another, especially if the endorsement is of such an unanticipated nature that it makes national news.

I first saw it in a chyron on TV on July 29. “Key tribe doesn’t endorse Deb Haaland for NM governor,” the text said, to the best of my recollection.

It’s not often that I first see news about New Mexico politics on national TV, so I quickly looked up the July 29 Axios story by Russell Contreras, a veteran New Mexico journalist formerly of The Associated Press here in New Mexico, and who in full disclosure is also in my fantasy football league comprised on New Mexico journalists. Contreras has been struggling in our fantasy league in recent years, but each NFL season offers renewed hope for us all.

Contreras’s story, “Key tribe shuns Deb Haaland in New Mexico governor race,” broke the news that Sandia Pueblo had endorsed Bernalillo County District Attorney Sam Bregman in the Democratic primary for governor, not Haaland in her bid to become the nation’s first Native American female governor.

“Why it matters: It’s a signal that Haaland, who is Laguna Pueblo, isn’t galvanizing New Mexico’s Native Americans as she did during her 2021 confirmation hearing for interior secretary, when she rallied Indigenous people in the U.S.,” Contreras reported in his story for Axios.

In a statement to Axios, Sandia Pueblo Gov. Felix Chaves said the tribe of around 500 members had confidence in Bregman, who has been DA for two-and-a-half years after 25 years as a prominent criminal defense attorney and five years as a prosecutor before that. He’s also chair of the Governor’s Organized Crime Prevention Commission and a leading no-nonsense voice in New Mexico on crime, especially violent juvenile crime.

“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 Sandia Pueblo governor said in the statement.

In political terms, the statement was a bombshell, even 10 months before the June primary. And Bregman understands that.

“It’s a huge deal, a big-time honor, and I’m so grateful for them to hear my message and have the trust in me to move this state forward in the right direction,” Bregman told me last week.

I asked Bregman if the endorsement had positioned him as the front-runner in the three-way race between himself, Haaland and former four-term Las Cruces Mayor Ken Miyagashima.

“I don’t know if I’m the front-runner or not. That really doesn’t matter now,” he said. “What’s important is that I’m the front-runner on primary day next June.”

So, I’ll answer my own question: Yes, an endorsement that made national news does position Bregman as the front-runner in the Democratic race for governor.

What’s more, a handful more endorsements from New Mexico tribes and pueblos, and the rug will be pulled from under the feet of the Haaland campaign and the perceived heart of her political base will be fractured.

Bregman seems to sense it. He told me he’s scheduled meetings with the tribal councils of four or five more pueblos in the next couple of weeks.

“I will continue until I’ve met with every pueblo and tribe,” he told me. “I think there’s going to continue to be all kinds of endorsements from different types of groups.”

Bregman received the endorsement of the Albuquerque Police Officers Association in April, soon after announcing his campaign for governor. He’ll likely get the nod from the New Mexico State Fraternal Order of Police and has also secured endorsements from the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades, Iron Workers Local 495, Teamsters Local 492 and LiUNA Local 16.

Haaland, on the other hand, is racking up endorsements from Democratic members of New Mexico’s congressional delegation and state legislators, none of which are newsworthy.

While telling, those endorsements don’t shed light on the critical campaigning taking place outside public view at tribal council meetings and rural gatherings across the state.

“People don’t have to agree with me on every single issue, but I appreciate the fact that many folks see the leadership I’m going to bring to this role,” Bregman told me.

Sandia’s endorsement has Haaland on the ropes 10 months before the primary. Haaland, who has faced criticism for avoiding the media and giving few interviews as U.S. Interior Secretary and who as a member of the Cabinet in the Biden administration was not forthcoming about the former president’s mental and physical health decline, needs a boost to energize her base and solidify her position as Bregman’s top challenger.

Otherwise, with a relatively thin political resume, Haaland could be exposed as a political paper tiger — a darling of the extreme left, but whose embracement of far-left policies leaves her unable to win any county fully south of Interstate 40 in a statewide primary, save De Baca County, the state’s second-least populous county.

Moreover, Miyagashima’s candidacy launched in May threatens Haaland’s ability to win big in the Democratic stronghold of Doña Ana County, primary votes she’ll need to offset Bregman supporters in Bernalillo County and across rural New Mexico.

Bregman told me he’s raised nearly $2 million since coming out of the chute in April. Haaland reported in May she had raised $3.7 million since formally announcing her campaign in February. Expect a deluge of TV ads after the first of the year.

Meanwhile, we’re still not sure who the Republican candidates for governor will be.

It’s early. But with a lackluster mayoral race in Albuquerque, political observers like myself are turning their attention to what is shaping up as a good, old-fashioned robust gubernatorial campaign.

With crime driving politics across New Mexico as the most dangerous state in the nation according to U.S. News & World Report, a key tribal endorsement from Sandia Pueblo, and the unleashing of 310,000 registered independent voters in next year’s primaries, Bregman has the political winds behind him at this point.