Lt. Gov. Howie Morales has a self-imposed deadline he promises to meet.
“I’ll decide by June whether I’m running for governor,” he said Tuesday.
Morales, 52, is more experienced in state government than fellow Democrats Sam Bregman and Deb Haaland, who already are campaigning for the gubernatorial nomination in the spring 2026 primary election.
Morales as a state senator represented three southwestern counties from 2008 through 2018. He has been lieutenant governor since 2019, winning two terms on a ticket topped by Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham.
Morales himself ran for governor in 2014. That campaign turned into a lesson on how difficult it is for a legislator with a limited political base to gain traction in a statewide election.
He started well enough, receiving top position on the Democratic ballot by winning the preprimary convention, a smattering of party insiders. But he struggled to raise money thereafter, finishing fourth in the five-way primary election with 14% of the vote.
Morales, of Silver City, won six of the state’s 33 counties in the gubernatorial primary, all in Southern New Mexico. His showing in the rest of the state was weak. Morales received 6% of the vote in Santa Fe and Sandoval counties and 11% in the state’s most populous county, Bernalillo.
If he runs again for governor, he said, he will be more formidable, having been on statewide general election ballots in 2018 and 2022.
Morales spoke anecdotally of people encouraging him to enter the ’26 governor’s race. “I’m sitting in a restaurant. A server goes by and says, ‘I hope you run.’ Those who know me from state government and a network of people from other walks of life are telling me to get in the race.”
He has informed Bregman and Haaland he might compete against them for the nomination.
“Both Sam and Deb, their rollouts have been strong,” Morales said. Because Bregman and Haaland began campaigning more than a year before the primary election, Morales decided he must jump in soon or stay out.
Bregman, the district attorney of Bernalillo County, formally announced his candidacy two weeks ago. For months Bregman welcomed speculation that he would mount a gubernatorial campaign.
Haaland, a former congresswoman and former U.S. secretary of the interior, formally launched her campaign in February. She probably started preparations in November, after Republican Donald Trump won the presidency. Haaland at that point knew her days as interior secretary were waning.
If Morales decides not to run for governor, he will consider applying for the presidency of scandal-ridden Western New Mexico University.
The institution’s leaders angered taxpayers with their money management, culminating with a $1.9 million payment to then-President Joseph Shepard in exchange for his resignation. Lujan Grisham finally asked Western’s five regents to resign 11 days after they approved the balloon payment.
Western’s newly appointed board of regents will hire an interim president first, get their footing and then begin searching for a long-term president. Morales will not pursue the interim position, but he said he could seek full-fledged presidency. The timetable for filling that job might coincide with Morales’ final weeks as lieutenant governor.
“I grew up on that campus. It would be like going home,” Morales said.
He received bachelor’s and master’s degrees in bilingual special education from Western and a doctorate in education from New Mexico State University.
Morales is well-liked in Western’s primary service area, which is similar to his old Senate district. People who don’t follow politics know him from his years as a teacher and a winning coach at Silver and Cobre high schools. He was inducted in 2017 to New Mexico’s hall of fame for high school baseball coaches.
Morales remained involved in regional issues even after being elected lieutenant governor. He publicly backed the Cobre school board after it voted 3-1 to drop Redskins as the mascot of Snell Middle School in Bayard.
Some people opposed the change. Others favored Eagles as a replacement mascot. Morales championed the nickname Miners, which be believed best exemplified the region’s history and character. He prevailed.
Morales is a fan of the 1954 movie Salt of the Earth, inspired by a 15-month strike at a zinc mine near where he grew up. He often mentions the real-life drama as a lesson in courage.
“It is a reflection of the resiliency not only of the miners but also the power of women in keeping the labor movement alive while men were placed in jail for protesting,” Morales once told me.
He wasn’t electable as governor in 2014. That was then, he says. Resiliency could be the watchword of his campaign if he runs again.
