Could American Indians decide the Senate majority?
Shortly after Rep. Steve Daines (R) took office as Montana’s lone member of the House in January 2013, one of his first meetings was with Darrin Old Coyote, chairman of the Crow Tribe, one of the state’s largest American Indian tribes. Daines said he asked Old Coyote what his top three priorities were for the tribe.
“He said No. 1 is jobs, No. 2 is jobs, and No. 3 is jobs,” Daines recalled.
Daines has since emerged as a leading candidate for Senate in this year’s election, vying to win one of the critical Democratic-held seats in Republican-leaning states and re-establish a GOP majority in the upper chamber. Montana is lining up to be one of a handful of Senate races that could determine which party will control the chamber for the next two years. Many of those states, including Montana, South Dakota and Alaska, are home to a large number of American Indians.
In these large, sparsely populated states, American Indian votes have often proved the difference in elections. Despite ongoing issues with voter access in tribal communities, senators like Jon Tester (D-Mont.) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) have benefited from strong, decisive Native support to win their seats. Daines said the influence of the Native vote in these states could help explain why Democrats are enjoying the slim majority in the Senate they have now.
“I think Republicans have done overall a poor job of working with our tribes,” Daines said. “We need to be much more proactive in reaching out and listening to what their issues are.”
Politically, it makes sense. In Montana, American Indians are 6.3 percent of the population — still a minority, but enough to carry elections often decided by a few thousand votes, especially when they vote in a block. That helps explain why Tester was eager to take over the gavel of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee earlier this year, though he isn’t up for re-election until 2018.
The Native share of the population is even higher in other states — almost 9 percent in South Dakota and almost 20 percent in Alaska, the highest proportion in the country.
Tom Rodgers, a lobbyist on American Indian issues and a member of the Blackfeet Nation in Montana, said American Indians have played a key role in recent Senate wins for Democrats like Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.) and Al Franken (D-Minn.). He expects the Native vote to be crucial in some races this November.
“If Democrats want to succeed in some of these races, they have to get [American Indians] to the polls,” Rodgers said.
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