Young Voters Are Getting Tribal Citizens to the Polls

The Menominee group is part of a collaboration of several organizations, including Indigenous- and minority-led ones. Some are in-state, such as Wisconsin Native Vote and Wisdom. Others are national, like Native Organizing Alliance, which exhorts its members to tap into “the political power of our people and the wisdom of our ancestors.” Together, they have been part of a movement to put voter engagement into full swing on Native homelands throughout the nation.

Tribal citizens comprise powerful voting blocs in the swing states the nation is watching in the 2024 election. In Wisconsin, as well as in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina and Pennsylvania, a small portion of a nearly evenly divided electorate could tilt the presidential race in favor of Kamala Harris or Donald Trump. In each of these seven states, the percentage of Natives is equal to or greater than the margin of victory in the 2020 presidential contest. (This percentage includes people the U.S. Census logs as either American Indian or American Indian in combination with other ethnicities.)

Because Native voters are typically Democrats, they can bolster a Democratic win or wipe out a Republican advantage. According to a 2021 report from the Brookings Institution, Native Americans were “consequential” in key 2018 and 2020 races and, with resources for mobilization, are likely to remain so.

In Indian Country, “that’s a message that’s been shared since 2020,” Reiter says, adding that Native people widely understand that they have been an important factor in recent elections.

According to the Brookings Institution report, the strong Native influence is due in large part to younger voters, who actively encourage relatives to participate in elections. Reiter says young Menominee team members are creating videos and posting them to social media like TikTok and Instagram. They have what he calls a “refreshing and energetic” way of seeing the world.

The track record of high involvement, coupled with a sense of urgency about this year’s election, makes Native American voters key deciders in a close contest.

Democrats are aware of this. On October 14, as the country celebrated Indigenous People’s Day, the Democratic National Committee announced a six-figure ad campaign aimed at Native voters in Arizona, North Carolina, Montana and Alaska. A majority of the digital, print and radio ads are being placed in local and national Native-owned publications.

At the Democratic convention in September, presidential candidate Vice President Kamala Harris hired Jade Begay, from Tesuque Pueblo and the Navajo Nation, as Native American Engagement Director. “Native Americans can and will decide this election,” Minnesota Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan, of the White Earth Nation, announced during a press call to publicize both the Begay hire and the formation of the group Native Americans for Harris-Walz.

According to Reiter, Native voters are energized by the idea that a Harris win would mean her running mate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz would transfer leadership of the state to Flanagan, making her the first Native governor in U.S. history.

“We are not taking one vote for granted,” Begay told the video Native American National Organizing Call she hosted on October 11. Flanagan explained to viewers, “Our lives are impacted more than anyone else in this country when it comes elections and policies.”

Mattea Twinn is the Democratic Party of Wisconsin’s Native American Coalitions Manager. She reminded organizing-call participants that Democrats won the 2020 election in that state by 20,000 votes. With 70,000 Natives of voting age, according to Twinn, “the path to the White House cuts right through Wisconsin.” Or maybe it cuts through Nevada, with its 62,000 Native voters, quipped Sylvia Rondeaux, who is from Pascua Yaqui and is the Northern Nevada Political Director of that state’s Democratic Party.

Natives use a range of means to reach voters. Begay described tribal- and community-leader endorsements for the Harris-Walz ticket, of which there have been more than 70. There’s plenty of long-distance travel as well. Rondeaux said she has recently driven 12,000 miles to speak to voters on Nevada’s scattered reservations. It is essential, Rondeaux said, to have personal conversations about issues of concern, which include climate change and quality health care, and, importantly, to repair the trust that was lost after what she described as voter-intimidation incidents in 2020 that resulted in many tribal citizens feeling unsafe to vote.

The trips aren’t always by car. Navajo activist Allie Young and her dad recently rode across the Navajo reservation on horseback, door-knocking and registering voters in rural communities.

Also in play are 21st–century methods. An attractive website iwillvote.com, posted in the organizing call’s chat, offers voters helpful state-specific links and information—deadlines, required ID, ways to check your registration and find your nearest polling location and much more. An Instagram page, Natives4Harris, appeals to younger voters.

The link nativevote.org, also posted in the chat, takes tribes to National Congress of American Indians GOTV webinars and grants. A former president of the multi-tribal organization has said its work to get out the vote is nonpartisan—“not ‘D’ for Democrat or ‘R’ for Republican but ‘I’ for Indian.”

Separately from those represented in the call, United Indian Nations of Oklahoma has a “Warrior Up to Vote” voter-registration initiative. The group also assists those erroneously disenfranchised by Oklahoma’s purge of more than 453,000 voters, which was announced in September by Gov. Kevin Stitt, who promised that Oklahoma “will continue to lead the nation in election integrity efforts.”

The national nonpartisan organization Four Directions Native Vote is running multiple GOTV operations, driving voters to the polls in swing states plus Montana, where a Native voting-rights lawsuit is now before a state court. The suit is not yet resolved, but since being filed earlier this month one on-reservation voting office has been set up for the Fort Peck Indian Tribe, in Poplar, Montana. The polling place opened for early voting Monday, October 21—two weeks after offices opened for the rest of the state—and immediately saw a stream of voters turning up to cast a ballot.

In contrast to energetic Democratic and nonpartisan outreach, the Republican National Committee (RNC) does not appear to be working hard to attract Native or minority voters. In March, the Daily Beast reported that the RNC had shuttered most of its Hispanic-outreach offices. It planned to open other offices focused on several groups, including Native Americans, but scrapped the idea.

An anonymous source joked to the Daily Beast that this was done in an effort to “Make the RNC White Again.” Trump spokesperson Stephen Cheung called the remark “racist” and “complete bullshit” but did not dispute Republicans’ outreach about-face. At press time, neither Cheung nor the RNC had responded to Barn Raiser’s requests for comments.

Getting to the ballot box has been a long struggle for Native voters. Denials of their right to vote—for decades after they became enfranchised U.S. citizens in 1924—varied from state to state. Such restrictions required, for example, that Natives abandon their tribal cultures, live apart from their reservations or meet additional demands unlike anything other U.S. citizens faced.

Nowadays, the barriers are different but also challenging. For example, tribal voters may have to travel to distant polling places in the county seats where voting is administered. Gerald R. Webster, a University of Wyoming geography professor, looked at the trips from reservations to polling places in three Montana counties. On average, he found, Native Americans drove three to more than four times farther than white people did in order to vote. These disparities are common in the West, where reservations are often far from white population centers.

Natives’ poverty and lack of access to transportation exacerbate the difficulty, according to Webster. Multiple families may share a vehicle, with several people taking turns driving it to work, school, doctor’s appointments and more. As a result, voters may not be able to use the vehicle for the drive to the county seat to vote.

Despite these travails and more, in recent elections Native voters have managed to provide winning margins for numerous candidates, including Sens. Jon Tester (D-Mont.), Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.).

Natives are also increasingly winning their own local, state and national offices. Prominent among them are Sharice Davids (D-Kan.), of the Ho-Chunk Nation, and Alaska Native Mary Peltola (D), elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2019 and 2022 respectively. Laguna Pueblo citizen Debra Haaland served in the House as a Democratic representative from New Mexico from 2019 to 2021. President Biden subsequently named her Secretary of the Interior.

As Haaland told the Native American National Organizing Call, “We have power in our voices and our vote.”

Stephanie Woodard

Stephanie Woodard is an award-winning journalist who writes on human rights and culture with a focus on Native American issues. She is the author of American Apartheid: The Native American Struggle for Self-Determination and Inclusion.