New Mexico Governor 2026: the ads, and who's paying for them
Deb Haaland (Democrat) and Gregg Hull (Republican) are the candidates for governor of New Mexico in the November 3, 2026 general election. Semblen has analyzed 55 ads in this race; 35 used at least one manipulation technique, most often glittering generalities and false urgency.
Deb Haaland (DEM), Gregg Hull (REP).
On the ballot as listed by Ballotpedia. 55 ads analyzed, 35 with at least one technique in the copy.
Newest first. The paid-for-by line is the advertiser's own filing. Updated 2026-10-08.
34 of 52 (65%) flagged · Glittering Generalities (27), False Urgency (12), Appeal to Fear (8)
YouTube
1 of 3 flagged · Flag-Waving (1), Glittering Generalities (1), Loaded Language (1)
Reported Meta spend
$352,600–437,586 on all ads, $164,000–202,985 on flagged ads · Meta reports ranges; these are the sums of their ends
Example
“build a better future for working families” — Glittering Generalities, paid for by Deb for New Mexico
· the flagged ad with the highest reported spend that shows the most common technique
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A small box with these findings and the newest ads, updated as new ads are analyzed. Free for newsrooms, blogs and campaigns alike; it links back here.
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All from the campaign; no ads here from groups placed on this side.
Read this before comparing the sides. Ads that attack an opponent use these techniques far more often than ads that introduce a candidate, whoever runs them, so the side running more attack ads shows a higher share. A technique is about wording, not about whether an ad is true. These are online ads only (Meta and YouTube), not television.
Appeal to Fear (1), Card Stacking (1), Loaded Language (1)
How a group is placed: by its own filings with the Federal Election Commission. A group is with a candidate when it reported spending to support that candidate, or to oppose the other one in the general election. The parties' own committees are with their nominee. Spending against a candidate in a primary places a group nowhere, and neither does our reading of its ads: a group with no such filing is listed as not placed. The sponsor table gives the reason for each.
Decide what counts
Not everyone would call every technique manipulation. Untick the ones you'd call ordinary persuasion and the count updates.
64% of the 55 ads here use at least one of the techniques ticked below (35 ads).
Leaving out the softer ones (loaded language, glittering generalities, slogans, exaggeration, repetition): 51% of ads.
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Money in this race
Candidates for governor report their fundraising to New Mexico's state campaign-finance office, not the FEC. This page doesn't cover those reports yet, so it shows no money figures.
The ads
55 ads, newest first. Video transcripts are shown as the model read them, without caption cues like [music].
Deb Haaland earns President Obama's support for Governor
Paid for by Deb Haalandvideo · 1:00from 2026-10-07
New Mexico, you have an opportunity to elect a real fighter as your next governor. Deb Haaland. Deb and I started out as organizers, and we learned that leadership is about listening, getting to know people and hearing their stories.
That's what Deb did on my campaign, knocking on thousands of doors in Indian country. And all these years later, she's still listening to folks in every corner of New Mexico. As governor, Deb will lower costs, strengthen education, build safer communities, and protect your healthcare because she knows what families are up against.
As a single mom, Deb relied on SNAP, WIC, Medicaid, and started a small business. Deb has spent her entire career fighting for New Mexicans, and she'll keep on doing it. So, vote for Deb Haaland for governor.
Loaded Language: The phrase 'real fighter' uses emotionally charged language to frame the candidate as uniquely strong and authentic — for example: 'real fighter'
Slogans: Catchy phrase used to compress a complex position into an emotionally loaded shorthand.
Glittering Generalities: The sentence lists vague, emotionally positive promises without specific policy details, functioning as rhetorical flourish — for example: 'lower costs, strengthen education, build safer communities, and protect your healthcare'
Flag-Waving: Patriotic, religious, or in-group identity invoked to validate a position.
Loaded Language
Slogans
Glittering Generalities
Flag-Waving
Looks up the ad's factual claims in fact-checkers, primary sources and wire reporting. Takes up to a minute.
Watch on YouTube ↗Transcript above is auto-generated; the analysis is of the spoken words.
Follow Deb Haaland vs. Gregg Hull
An email when new ads come in from either side or the outside groups: the techniques, the words doing the work, and who paid. And each debate's analysis the morning after. One-click unsubscribe.
An ad is on this page because its own "Paid for by" line is a campaign in this race; or it ran mostly in NM and names a nominee for governor — unless its sponsor is a campaign for some other office (a U.S. Senate or House campaign included), or it also names NM's Senate nominees, in which case it is on the Senate race's page. Ads from outside groups appear alongside the campaigns' own.
The candidates are the ones certified for the November ballot, from the source linked at the top. Governors are state offices, so there are no FEC filings behind this page: no money figures, and outside groups are placed on a side only when they are a campaign or a party committee.
Campaigns run one text as many separate ads. Identical text from the same sponsor is one card here, marked with its number of variants.
A technique is a specific manipulative move in the wording, found by our model and explained in one line. It is not a claim that the ad is false.
Claims are checked when a reader asks: press "Check this ad's claims" on a card. The check runs once and its result is shown to everyone afterwards. The ten ads with the most money behind them in each race are checked ahead of time.
Claim verdicts say what the cited sources say. A verdict that an ad is wrong or misleading is shown only when it cites an established fact-checker or an institutional record — Congress, a federal agency, a court — and its confidence is not low; a weaker one is not shown at all. Each verdict shows what it rests on and how confident it is. If we got one wrong, press Disagree: a verdict that readers dispute and no one defends comes down.
Video ads come from the campaigns' own YouTube channels; the transcript is analyzed. Meta ads are analyzed on their text; their video and images are not, yet.
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