Mark Trahant
ICT
The national news media has been trying to sell a story. It goes like this: A significant number of Indigenous voters shifted right and favored Donald J. Trump in this election.
Last month in a report for NBC News’ Alyssa London said: “President Trump has had an advantage with Native voters nationwide.” She went on to describe how Navajos for Trump was using social media and other initiatives to reach Indigenous voters. Then just after the election, NBC News released its exit poll that showed that nearly 2/3s of Native American voters supported Trump. This is this election’s “something else.”
It is a story that stretches every time it’s told.
The right-wing National Review posted a story over the weekend that said American Indians are the most pro-Trump demographic in America. It cites the exit poll that NBC used – and even identifies the problem within the data. “Granted, American Indians make up just 1 percent of the respondents in the exit poll, and it’s possible that the small sample size is throwing the percentages off a bit, but the exit poll results come from “interviews of 22,914 randomly selected voters as they exited voting places across the country on Nov. 5; as well as from early in-person voting locations and through live telephone, text-to-web or by email.” So while it’s possible Trump’s support in this demographic was lower than two-thirds . . . it wouldn’t be that much lower.”
Uh, yeah. It would be – and it was.
The best way to account for how Indian Country voted would be to look at the precinct reports – that’s probably two or three weeks away. But we do now have a good picture from Native American communities at the country level – and the headline is that Trump picked up only a handful more votes than did Vice President Kamala Harris. The numbers remain one-sided and overwhelmingly favored the Democrats.
Let’s start with an easy return: Oglala Lakota County in South Dakota. (More than 90 percent of the voter population is Lakota or Native American.) Harris picked up 84 percent of all ballots, down by 4 percent from the campaign of President Joe Biden.
And that’s the story: Across the board, Harris slightly underperformed Biden. (A lot less sexy, right?) And if you want more: The series of laws designed to reduce the turnout from tribal communities worked. Across the board there were fewer voters this time around.
Across the country the numbers show what happened. Menominee County Wisconsin voted 80.5 percent for Harris; down from 81 percent for Biden four years ago. The data is similar in the few Native American counties that favor Republicans, such as Oklahoma’s Adair County. Trump indeed did better, Slight better. His support grew from 78.6 percent to 82 percent.
The news media makes a huge error when it relies on an exit poll to characterize how Indian Country voted. (Especially when there is hard data.) There are just too many questions to ask, ranging from the sample size (always my first question) because you need a huge number of respondents if you want to accurately measure tribal communities to how the Native American respondents are defined. There may be a difference, for example, between Native voters in tribal communities and those living in cities. And that’s more of a question than an answer.
Further reading:Plus or minus: Who’s ahead?
Why does a false data story matter? Because at the same time that’s happening there is a real numbers’ scandal: the failure to properly administer the election in at least one key state, Arizona.
Apache County – the largest number of Native American voters in Arizona – had a major meltdown this election. Navajo voters were standing in line, in the cold, and not everyone voted. And even those who did cast a ballot were lost to procedure, minor mistakes like no signature or one that was off. The law says voters have an opportunity to fix a minor mistake, it’s called ballot curing.
The American Civil Liberties Union unsuccessfully asked the Arizona Supreme Court to order Apache (and other Arizona counties) to extend that process. The ACLU said: “tens of thousands of Arizonans stand to be disenfranchised without any notice, let alone an opportunity to take action to ensure their ballots are counted. Because these ballots have not even been processed, respondents have not identified which ballots are defective and have not notified voters of the need to cure those defects.”
You have to remember Arizona already starts with disenfranchisement as an election framework. Voters had to register in early October and the ordinary task of keeping up with phone numbers and address changes is impossible.
This is the story we should be telling: The systematic rejection of tens of thousands of Native Americans’ ballots. That is no way to run an election.
Mark Trahant, Shoshone-Bannock, is editor-at-large for Indian Country Today. On Threads and Instagram: @TrahantReports Trahant is based in Phoenix.