One potential candidate for governor is wary of being typecast.
Don’t call Duke Rodriguez the king of cannabis. He says there is much more to his story.
Rodriguez, 67, wants to be seen as a captain of industry who’s busy investigating whether he can win the Republican nomination and then the general election.
“I’m prepared to spend $2 million personally,” he said Tuesday in a wide-ranging interview.
Ego, Rodriguez added, has nothing to do with his aspiration to be governor. “This is sincere. I don’t need the title,” he said.
His self-imposed time frame to decide whether to enter the race is as early as next month but no later than August. The gubernatorial primary is in June 2026.
He said he can make a difference for the better by reforming and stabilizing Medicaid and public pension programs. But, he said, he must be confident he can win before he commits to running.
“We see Republicans get to 45, 46% in general elections. I have to know I can get to 50% plus one,” he said.
By his own description, Rodriguez might be best-known at the moment as “the weed dude.” He is president and CEO of Ultra Health, which operates 25 retail cannabis outlets in 21 counties.
Before cannabis was his business, Rodriguez was chief operating officer of Lovelace Health System. He also served as an executive of a pharmaceutical company.
Rodriguez has not run for public office unless he counts a campaign in the 1970s for student body vice president of New Mexico State University. He’s been in the public sector, though. Rodriguez spent 15 months, many of them stormy, as Republican Gov. Gary Johnson’s third Cabinet secretary of the state Human Services Department.
Rodriguez quit without being shoved by the governor. Detractors applauded his exit. They called Rodriguez arrogant and a poor listener.
After resigning from the Cabinet, Rodriguez said he did so to return attention to Johnson’s goals. “If I continue to let the debate center around me personally, that would give the opposing parties the opportunity not to face up to what really has to be dealt with,” he said.
Should Rodriguez run for governor, he expects to have natural constituencies because of his experience in business.
What he calls “my cannabis adventures” began in the last dozen years and heightened his public profile. He estimated 135,000 people who’ve had or have medical cannabis licenses would be a bloc friendly to him. No candidate should expect lockstep support from so many people, but Rodriguez claims he would win them over.
He said he could help state residents and the economy with a focus on Medicaid reforms. Between federal and state funding, Medicaid is a $15 billion annual operation in New Mexico. Cutting by the Trump administration might reduce that aid.
And Rodriguez said he could be the candidate of 250,000 current and retired public employees by providing a detailed program to make their pension programs solvent.
Rio Rancho Mayor Gregg Hull is the only Republican officially in the governor’s race. No better than a regional candidate for a statewide office, Hull seems sure to face competition for the nomination.
Along with Rodriguez, two other names pop up frequently. One is Judith Nakamura, a retired justice of the state Supreme Court. She was the last Republican in New Mexico to win a statewide office, in 2016.
“Judith Nakamura would be a good candidate,” Rodriguez said. “I would be a candidate who could win. I can get the crossover votes.”
He was less charitable toward John Sanchez, who might try to revive his political career. Sanchez is a former two-term lieutenant governor from 2011 to 2018, a short-lived U.S. Senate candidate in 2012 and the Republican Party’s losing candidate for governor in 2002.
“I would not run if I answered ‘no’ to one question,” Rodriguez said. “Do I think there’s a candidate who has a better chance to win? I don’t believe that is John Sanchez.”
Full of himself, Rodriguez sounds ready to campaign. He reflects on why he wants to be governor. He says he was a kid in California, part of a family of migrant farm workers. They moved to Silver City in 1971, then on to Alamogordo, where Rodriguez graduated from high school in 1975. Fifty years and many business ventures later, he sees the governor’s office within his reach.
Democrats will be favored. Deb Haaland, former secretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior, has already raised nearly $3 million. Sam Bregman, the district attorney of Bernalillo County, is running well to the right of Haaland, hoping to build a coalition including independents, swing voters and moderate Republicans.
Ken Miyagishima, former mayor of Las Cruces, plans to announce his candidacy for the Democratic nomination on May 27. Lt. Gov. Howie Morales is still talking about joining the governor’s race. “The larger the field gets, the more enticing it is to me,” Morales said Tuesday.
