RED SPRINGS, N.C. (AP) — Native American communities were crucial voting blocs in key states in 2020, and as the 2024 race remains stubbornly close, both campaigns have sought to mobilize native voters in the final weeks of the presidential election.
But when it comes to messaging, the two campaigns couldn’t be more different, many local voters said. It’s been 100 years since Native Americans gained the right to vote with the passage of the Snyder Act in 1924, and whichever campaign is able to operate their power in this election could have some of the most hotly contested districts in the country decide for yourself.
In swing states like Arizona, North Carolina, Michigan and Nevada, candidates — particularly Vice President Kamala Harris — have targeted Native Americans with radio ads and events on tribal lands with speakers like Bill Clinton and Donald Trump Jr.
Native American voters tend to favor Democrats, but they are more likely to vote Republican than Latinos or African Americans, said Gabriel R. Sanchez, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. He said they are one of the least partisan and youngest groups of voters in the country, often motivated by issues that directly impact their communities, such as land rights and environmental protection.
In 2020, the Biden administration campaigned in several tribal nations in critical states like Wisconsin and Arizona, and districts on tribal lands there helped swing the election narrowly for Democrats. “Arizona was kind of a textbook example of what this could look like if you make those early investments,” Sanchez said.
As part of a $370 million advertising campaign released this month that also references several reservations, Harris said the U.S. should respect treaty rights and uphold tribal sovereignty. Crystal Echo Hawk, CEO of Illuminative, a nonprofit that works to escalate the visibility of Native Americans, said those commitments, along with the economy and environmental protection, are the top issues that Native voters care about in Illuminative’s polls would have identified.
Echo Hawk said those investments could pay off again for Democrats. “I haven’t seen the same kind of targeted messaging and outreach from the Trump campaign,” she said. Harris will also inherit some of the goodwill left over from the administrations of Barack Obama and Joe Biden, she said.
Obama increased consultations with tribes on issues such as land protection and criminal justice, and Biden appointed more than 80 Native Americans to senior administrative positions.
“The moment the announcement came that Harris was entering the race, you saw people organize overnight,” Echo Hawk said. And Trump, she said, will have to contend with his 85% reduction in Bears Ears National Monument and his revival of the Keystone XL pipeline, both of which are unpopular with indigenous peoples. “I think a lot of these people remember that,” she said.
On Friday, Biden formally apologized for the country’s support of Native American residential schools and their legacy of abuse and cultural destruction. Although it was considered long overdue, it was praised by tribal leaders. On Saturday, vice presidential candidate and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz will campaign in the Navajo Nation.
The Trump campaign hasn’t run any ads targeting Native Americans, but U.S. Sen. Markwayne Mullin, an Oklahoma Republican and a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, has campaigned in Native communities in North Carolina, a decided swing state former president installed in 2020 by less than one point.
On a brisk evening earlier this month, Mullin sat on a tiny stage in front of several hay bales to answer questions along with Donald Trump Jr. and former Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, a former Democrat who recently announced she was joining the Republican Party by an audience of a few hundred people. They discussed topics ranging from economics to tribal self-determination.
The event took place on a tiny farm in Red Springs, North Carolina, part of the classic homelands of Mullin’s ancestors and the current home of the Lumbee Tribe, a federally recognized tribe with approximately 55,000 members.
Federal recognition of the Lumbee was opposed by several tribal nations, including the nearby Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians and Mullin’s own tribe, the Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma. The Lumbee’s push for federal recognition has become a focus of both campaigns and a infrequent issue on which both parties agree. Last month, Trump said he would sign a bill granting federal recognition to the Lumbee. Harris called the Lumbee tribal chairman last week to discuss the legislation.
“This is an injustice that needs to be righted when it comes to Lumbees,” Mullin told the crowd. “This is absolutely absurd. It has to be done. I was so proud to hear President Trump say he would sign it.”
But Mullin soon touched on one of the many areas where the two candidates differ: energy policy. Emphasizing the fact that he believed a second Trump term would mean a better economy and lower energy costs, Mullin laid out Trump’s policies in a familiar phrase repeated by the audience: “Drill, baby, drill.”
Both the Biden and Trump administrations pushed to develop more oil and gas than ever before, including extractive energy projects opposed by indigenous peoples. However, Native leaders expressed concern that Trump is more likely to further undermine protections on tribal lands.
Mullin suggested that if tribal nations were truly sovereign, they should be able to conduct energy production without the burden of government interference. He said just like the Lumbee’s fight for federal recognition, the tribes’ right to govern their own lands are victims of federal bureaucracy.
“Why is tribal land treated like public land?” Mullin asked, questioning why the federal government should have any oversight over tribal nations that extract natural resources on their own land. “Natural resources are being extracted from the ground right behind the reservation fence. There are private landowners who are extremely wealthy and there are people who are literally starving on reservations,” he said, comparing some to third world countries.
He promised that Trump would have a deep understanding of tribal sovereignty.
That message resonated with Robert Chavis Jr., a physical education teacher and Army veteran who attended the rally and will vote for Trump. Chavis, a member of the Lumbee Tribe, said tribal nations are not just governments, they are businesses, and the U.S. is no different. “I have the feeling that there is no need for a politician there. We need a businessman to run the country the way it should be.”
Other Lumbee voters, however, are not so convinced. At her art gallery a few miles away in Pembroke, Janice Locklear said Trump promised to give the Lumbee federal recognition last time in office, and she had no reason to believe he could get it done this time. But she looked beyond her community and said what Trump did on Jan. 6, 2021, posed a nationwide threat to democracy.
“He thought he could actually be a dictator, go in there and take power. Even though he lost the election; he knew he had lost the election. “So what do you think he’s going to do this time?” she said.
Locklear said as a woman of color, she trusts Harris will have a deeper understanding of the unique challenges facing Native Americans. “I’m sure she was struggling with the same issues we were,” Locklear said. “Discrimination, I’m sure she faced that.”
