In final days, Democrats step up pitch to Native American voters

Democrats are making a final push to gain the support of Native American voters in a close presidential race, part of a broader push to court a voting bloc that has long felt overlooked.

“We’re here because we’re not taking any vote for granted, and we’re here to show the respect to the Navajo Nation and earn your vote,” the Democratic vice-presidential candidate, Tim Walz, said during a visit Saturday to the sprawling reservation centered in northeast Arizona.

It was the first trip by a candidate on either presidential ticket this cycle to one of the most populous tribal nations - and one of two events Walz headlined in as many days targeting Native voters.

Standing in front of Window Rock - the namesake sandstone formation of the Navajo Nation capital - Walz, wearing a beaded turquoise necklace, promised Vice President Kamala Harris would show more respect for tribal communities in the White House than former president Donald Trump.

In recent weeks, Democrats have spent money on ads, staff and other efforts across battleground states to mobilize Native Americans as a potential difference-maker in a tight race.

Much of the outreach has been focused on Arizona, which has the largest Native population of any battleground state. President Joe Biden’s razor-thin margin of victory there in 2020 - 10,457 votes - highlighted how decisive this vote can be.

“The difference between Kamala Harris and Gov. Walz winning in the state of Arizona, or Donald Trump and that other guy, the difference could be here on the Navajo Nation,” Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Arizona, said Saturday, addressing a reservation with a population of over 165,000 - the most populous in the country.

Republicans have also made efforts at outreach to tribal communities in Arizona, arguing, among other things, that Trump is the best candidate to create economic opportunity for them. About a fifth of Native Americans live below the poverty level, according to the American Community Survey.

“We can’t be doomed again,” Myron Lizer, a Republican and former vice president of the Navajo Nation said as he protested at the Walz event, according to the Navajo Times. “Our people have been voting Democrat for over five decades and nothing’s changed.”

Native Americans make up just over 1 percent of the U.S. population, according to 2020 census data. In Arizona, they are just under 5 percent of the population.

While Biden is no longer seeking reelection, his legacy looms large in the push for Native votes.

He tapped former New Mexico congresswoman Deb Haaland to serve as interior secretary, making her the first Native American Cabinet-level secretary. He moved to protect land around the Grand Canyon from further uranium mining, a priority of tribes in the region.

And on Friday, Biden went to the Gila River Indian Community near Phoenix to formally apologize for the U.S. policy that sent Native American children to boarding schools for 150 years, taking them from their families and stripping them of their culture.

“I know I speak for everyone when I say that we’ve never had a president - or vice president - who’ve done more for Indian country,” Stephen Roe Lewis, governor of the Gila River Indian Community, said as he introduced Biden.

The outreach extends down the ballot in Arizona.

The state’s Democratic nominee for Senate, Rep. Ruben Gallego, has set a goal of visiting all 22 federally recognized tribes in the state by Election Day. He checked off his 20th tribe earlier this month when he hiked to the bottom of the Grand Canyon to meet with the Havasupai.

In Arizona’s 2nd Congressional District, Native voters are especially galvanized as the former president of the Navajo Nation, Jonathan Nez (D), runs against Rep. Eli Crane (R).

“As Native Americans, our voices have long been marginalized, but now is the time for us to reclaim our power and make our presence felt,” Nez said Sunday in Window Rock, as attendees waved signs that used Native slang to encourage people to vote Democratic.

In reaching out to Native voters, both parties are up against decades of skepticism and disillusionment with politics.

“Both sides have some uphill work to do because I think Native Americans … don’t really perceive that either party really has invested in building relationships with them,” said Gabriel Sanchez, a political science professor at the University of New Mexico who studies Native American communities.

There are dozens of federally recognized tribes across the battleground states and many are in harder-to-reach areas. To visit Window Rock, Walz flew in and out of the municipal airport in Gallup, a small city in northwestern New Mexico.

“It’s not like there’s a huge city like Phoenix where you can go and meet Latinos and it’s a very efficient outreach,” said Stephen Nuño-Perez, a professor at Northern Arizona University who recently helped oversee polling on the Native vote in the state. “There’s a lot of barriers not only within the community, but there’s a lot of barriers within the institution to reach out to this community.”

Native Americans have long faced unique hurdles to voting, whether it be limited access to polling places, language barriers or misconceptions about their rights.

Anne Egan-Waukau, who works for a nonpartisan Native outreach group called Wisconsin Conservation Voices, recalled how when she went to register to vote in the Milwaukee suburbs 20 years ago, she was asked where she was born. She replied the Menominee reservation, and she was told - wrongly - she was ineligible to cast a ballot.

“Don’t ever let anyone tell you can’t vote,” she said she routinely tells Native Americans.

When it comes to the current presidential election, Sanchez said, “the Harris campaign has definitely had much more of a strategic and public-facing Native American outreach plan.”

The Harris campaign has run television and radio ads targeted at the Navajo Nation. It expects to have 31 organizers focused on Native outreach in Arizona by Tuesday. It also has a dedicated staffer for outreach in another battleground state, Wisconsin, which has 11 federally recognized tribes.

The Democratic National Committee has also launched ads as part of what it says is its largest investment ever in Native outreach.

Republicans have staff that meet with voters in the Navajo Nation on a weekly basis, according to an RNC spokesperson. In Arizona, Lizer is an especially visible surrogate, starring in radio ads for the Arizona GOP.

A key surrogate for Democrats is Walz’s lieutenant governor in Minnesota, Peggy Flanagan, who stands to become the first Indigenous woman to serve as governor if he leaves for Washington.

In both Arizona and Nevada, Walz promised to respect tribal sovereignty, promote tribal consultation and ensure tribal self-determination. He also offered pointed contrasts with Trump, noting, for example, his administration’s dispute with Native American tribes over billions of dollars in relief from the coronavirus pandemic, which hit their communities particularly hard.

“Time and time again, Donald Trump had to do what was right for Indian country, and he chose the opposite,” Walz said in Window Rock.

In Las Vegas, attendees booed and shook their heads when Walz recalled Trump hosting Navajo code talkers who visited the White House in front of a portrait of former president Andrew Jackson, who forced the Trail of Tears removal of thousands of Native Americans.

Republicans argue Trump has a strong track record on issues important to Native voters. Among the examples they cite are his creation of a task force on missing and murdered American Indians and Alaska Natives.

“Native Americans in Arizona and across our Nation need President Trump more than ever before and are eager for a return to his leadership in the White House,” RNC spokesperson Halee Dobbins said in a statement.

Among the people who came to see Walz, there was appreciation for Biden’s apology and the broader political outreach this election cycle - but also awareness that it is a work in progress.

Nellie Davis, 36, the founder of a traditional wellness studio in Reno and an enrolled member of the Walker River Paiute Tribe, said she has been working on tribal outreach to every reservation in Nevada.

“We have folks in the community who say that they haven’t had any outreach in the last few years,” she said at Walz’s event in Las Vegas. “I think that the efforts that are being made are in the right direction.”