How Indigenous voters swung the 2020 election - High Country News 11/30/20, 2:00 PM

KNOW THE WEST

How Indigenous voters swung the 2020 election

In Arizona and Wisconsin, Native turnout — which often leans liberal — made the difference in Biden’s slim but
winning margin.

Anna V. Smith | Nov. 6, 2020

Biden/Harris supporter Cindy Honani stands outside the Navajo Nation

Council Chamber while holding a sign above her head to protect herself from
the snow in Window Rock in late October.
Sharon Chischilly/Navajo Times

Note: This article has been updated with voter data as of Nov. 9 at 2 p.m. mountain standard time.

This year’s presidential election has been a close race in a handful of states, including Arizona. On Wednesday, for
just the second time in 70 years, the Associated Press called the race for a Democratic presidential candidate, in part
due to the Native vote.

Indigenous people in Arizona comprise nearly 6% (https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/articles/2019-11-

29/california-arizona-oklahoma-where-most-native-americans-live) of the population — 424,955 people as of 2018 —
and eligible voters on the Navajo Nation alone number around 67,000. Currently, the margin between Democratic
candidate Joe Biden — who has released a robust policy plan (https://joebiden.com/tribalnations/) for Indian
Country — and incumbent President Donald Trump is 17,131 as of Monday. (Votes continue to be counted, so
numbers may change)

Precinct-level data shows that outside of heavily blue metropolitan areas like Phoenix and Tucson, which also have
high numbers of Indigenous voters, much of the rural blue islands that have voted for Biden and Mark Kelly, the
Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, are on tribal lands. On some Tohono O’odham Nation precincts, Biden and
Democratic vice presidential candidate Kamala Harris won 98% of the vote. As of Nov. 9, the three counties that
overlap with the Hopi Tribe and Navajo Nation went for Biden at a rate of 57%, as opposed to 51% statewide. Voter
precincts on the Navajo Nation ranged from 60-90% for Biden.

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Map showing how different Arizona precincts voted in the 2020 Presidential
election (left). Map of tribal lands in Arizona (right).
Garrett Archer/ABC 15 Arizona (left) and Environmental Protection Agency (right)

That pattern is consistent with 2016 (http://rynerohla.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/2016-AZ-Inverted.png),

when the rest of the state went for Trump. “Partisan groups have long ignored Native voters, including in states such
as Arizona, New Mexico, North Dakota, South Dakota and Montana,” says Jordan James Harvill (Cherokee), chief of
staff of the nonpartisan group VoteAmerica, which worked directly with Navajo Nation and community partners to
get out the vote. “We view these voters as some of the highest-potential voters in the electorate and we’ll continue to
invest in voters in Indian Country for years to come.”

[RELATED:https://www.hcn.org/issues/52.6/covid-19-impacts-every-corner-of-the-navajo-nation]

Indigenous people in Arizona were hit hard by the pandemic, which was exacerbated by Republican state officials
who did little to limit the spread of COVID-19 through public safety measures like required mask wearing
(https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/502608-arizona-gov-ducey-will-not-require-masks-amid-states-covid-
19-spike), business closures, or adequate translations for COVID-19 resources.
(https://news.bloomberglaw.com/coronavirus/with-immigrants-imperiled-covid-tracers-confront-language-gap) All
this was compounded by an inadequate federal response that delayed financial relief to tribal governments
(https://www.federaltimes.com/coronavirus/2020/06/16/judge-rules-us-must-release-679m-in-tribal-virus-relief-
funds/).

At one point in May, the Navajo Nation had the highest ratio of COVID-19 cases
(https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/18/us/navajo-nation-infection-rate-
trnd/index.html#:~:text=The%20Navajo%20Nation%2C%20which%20spans,Covid%2D19%20per%20100%2C000%20people.)
in the U.S., surpassing New York City. President Jonathan Nez has criticized the Trump administration for its
botched response, and the Navajo Nation has joined other tribal nations in a lawsuit over the dispersal of the funds
(https://navajotimes.com/rezpolitics/election-2020/arizona-flips-navajos-contribute-to-historic-shift/). Recent exit
polls showing how Indigenous voters favored Biden overall in Arizona
(https://electioneve2020.com/poll/#/en/demographics/native-american/az) also showed the pandemic response to be
the most important issue on their minds.

In the weeks before the election, several Navajo citizens filed suit against the state of Arizona
(http://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2020/10/15/20-16890.pdf ) over the deadline for mail-in ballots.
Pointing to the myriad challenges Indigenous communities face with vote-by-mail, they asked the court to allow
ballots to be postmarked — instead of received — by 7 p.m. on Election Day. They lost the case, but because of efforts

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by groups like VoteAmerica, Four Directions, Rural Utah Project and the Nez administration, counties like Apache
County, which overlaps the Navajo Nation and Hopi Tribe, saw 116% voter turnout compared to the 2016 election.
(Votes are still being counted, so total numbers and percentages are likely to change.)

[RELATED:https://www.hcn.org/articles/indigenous-affairs-borderlands-stop-the-destruction-of-tohono-oodham-
lands]

On the Tohono O’odham Nation, which spans Pima, Maricopa and Pinal counties, most precincts were above 90% for
Biden, according to a statewide map pulled together by ABC15 Arizona (https://www.abc15.com/news/election-
2020/map-arizona-election-result-details-by-precinct). Throughout the Trump administration, O’odham citizens
and the tribal government have been vocal in their opposition (https://www.hcn.org/articles/indigenous-affairs-
borderlands-stop-the-destruction-of-tohono-oodham-lands) to the border wall, which Trump has forced through
without tribal consultation, even as it severs the landscape and destroys (https://www.hcn.org/articles/borderlands-
border-wall-construction-and-environmental-destruction-in-a-remote-arizona-canyon) ancestral O’odham sites.
Those high numbers were repeated throughout precincts covering the lands of the Hualapai, Havasupai, White
Mountain Apache, Gila River, San Carlos Apache, Pascua Yaqui, Cocopah and Colorado River tribes, generally within
the range of 70-90% for Biden.

Indigenous voters are by no means a monolith (https://www.hcn.org/issues/51.21-22/indigenous-affairs-this-

cherokee-congressman-is-for-trump-and-indian-country), and the majority of Indigenous people live in urban areas
(https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/sep/04/native-americans-stories-california), which makes it likely that
many more voted in metro areas and therefore don’t appear in voting data from tribal lands. (In fact, a survey done
by a coalition of Indigenous organizations called Building Indigenous Power
(http://indigenousfutures.illuminatives.org/wp-content/uploads/Indigenous_Futures_Survey_Report.pdf ) showed
that Indigenous voters on reservations were less likely to vote compared to those in the city or small towns.) Still,
clear voting patterns can be seen across Indian Country:

In Montana, though the state went for Trump overall, counties overlapping with the reservations of the Blackfeet Nation, Fort
Belknap Tribes, the Crow Tribe and Northern Cheyenne Tribe went blue. The divides were often stark; Glacier County,
encompassed by the Blackfeet Nation, went for Biden by 64%, the highest in the entire state, while the neighboring county
voted for Trump by 75%. The Native vote in Montana has made the difference before, when Indigenous voters helped Sen.
Jon Tester, a Democrat who has advocated for Indian Country in legislation regarding water settlements, missing and
murdered Indigenous women, and tribal recognition, get elected the last three terms in often-close races
(http://www.charkoosta.com/news/native-american-voters-heavily-influence-election-results/article_4d66ccc8-e852-11e8-
8b79-5bac5470260c.html).
Wisconsin, a closely watched swing state, went narrowly for Biden by around 20,500 votes. There, the Indigenous population
is 90,189 people as of 2018. Wisconsin counties overlapping the lands of the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, the
Menominee Tribe and the Stockbridge-Munsee Band of Mohicans show that voters there helped tip the count to a Democratic
majority. Menominee County, which overlaps the Menominee Tribe’s reservation, voted for Biden 82%, compared to the state
as a whole at 49.4%.
South Dakota went for Trump by 61% — except on tribal lands. Counties overlapping the lands of the Standing Rock Sioux,
Cheyenne River Sioux, Oglala Sioux, Rosebud Sioux and Crow Creek tribes went for Biden. In Oglala Lakota County, which
overlaps with the Oglala Sioux Tribe’s Pine Ridge reservation, Biden won with 88%. In Todd County, which overlaps the
Rosebud Sioux Reservation, Biden won 77% of the vote.

[RELATED:https://www.hcn.org/issues/52.6/indigenous-affairs-election-2020-report-indigenous-voters-face-racism-
and-suppression]

Additionally, Indigenous candidates did well: A historic six Native candidates will be heading to the U.S. Congress
next term, New Mexico has made history by becoming the second state after Hawaii whose delegation to the U.S.
House of Representatives will now be made up entirely of women of color (https://www.cbsnews.com/news/new-

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mexico-first-state-elect-all-women-of-color-house-of-representatives/), two of whom are Native. That’s in addition to

dozens of Indigenous candidates elected to state and local offices (https://indiancountrytoday.com/news/native-
candidates-light-up-state-local-ballots-9vXRbpqwokaIHTxpl4RFmQ), 11 of which were elected to state office in
Arizona.

As the 2020 election comes to a close, James Harvill says this election illuminates the importance of the Native vote,
which is likely to only grow because of an increasing young population aging into the electorate and a strong level of
community support. “When we’re looking on to the next several years, we’re going to see that Native American voters
become one of the defining members of the electorate, much like we’re seeing of Latinx and Black voters.”

Anna V. Smith is an assistant editor for High Country News. Email us at editor@hcn.org (mailto:editor@hcn.org) or
submit a letter to the editor (https://www.hcn.org/feedback/contact-us). Follow @annavtoriasmith
(https://twitter.com/annavtoriasmith)

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