Feeling ignored, some swing-state Native Americans are leaning toward Trump – America

But he is puzzled by how little attention is paid to Native Americans in states like Nevada, where a paper-thin divide separates Donald Trump and Kamala Harris.

“Unfortunately, I don’t know if they really pay attention to us,” says John, an 18-year-old member of the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe, which spans several counties in northwestern Nevada.

“We are still the smallest minority in our country.”

A century after their ancestors were first recognized as US citizens, many Native Americans who spoke to AFP said they felt cut off from the political process.

Neither candidate talks about Native American issues, and neither has visited a reservation, an own goal in a place like Nevada, where the Native American population dwarfs Joe Biden’s 33,500-win lead in the state in 2020.

And in the absence of a visit, the same disappointment that has gripped the rest of America is growing.

“The Native vote in Nevada is about 60,000 votes. Do you want it or not? asks an exasperated 65-year-old Elveda Martinez, an activist from the Walker River Paiute Tribe. “Because if that’s what you want, then you better go to the reservation and say, ‘Here I am.’

“You don’t have to go to all of them, but go to one or two,” she continued. “It’s already late, the voting has started (…) and you haven’t even shown up.”

It’s a sentiment echoed by Alicia Paul of the Navajo Nation in Arizona. While she says the current administration seems sympathetic, it’s not enough.

“In many ways, our rights have been pushed to the wayside,” she said. “It definitely feels like we’re not being heard.”

Apology

Joe Biden’s visit on Friday to the Gila River Indian Community in Arizona may alleviate some of that frustration.

The president issued a historic apology for what he called one of the “worst chapters in the nation’s history” in which Native American children were taken from their families and placed in government boarding schools.

For more than a century and a half, ending in the 1970s, the forced assimilation program resulted in the physical, mental and sexual abuse of countless children, as well as the deaths of nearly a thousand children.

“I know that no apology can or will make up for what was lost during the darkness of federal residential school policy,” he said. “Today we finally move forward into the light.”

Democrats may have nominated the first Native American to serve as a Cabinet secretary, with Deb Haaland serving as Biden’s Interior secretary, but the party can no longer depend on indigenous support, Martinez says.

The activist, who has spent much of her life fighting for Indigenous rights and promoting voting among her community, says sentiment is changing.

“We have historically been a true Democratic voting bloc here on the reservation, and that has changed over the last four years,” she said.

T-shirts with the message “Natives Vote” are displayed at the administrative offices of the Walker River Paiute Reservation in Shurtz, Nevada, on October 16, 2024. A century after they were first recognized as United States citizens, many Native Americans AFP spoke to said they felt cut off from the political process. Neither candidate talks about Native American issues, and neither has visited a reservation, an own goal in a place like Nevada, where the Native American population dwarfs Joe Biden’s 33,500-win lead in the state in 2020. The same frustration that has gripped the rest of America is growing. (AFP/Frederick J. Brown)

“I think it’s more like 65 Democrats and 35 Republicans now percentage-wise, so that’s changing.”

Martinez, who cast her ballot for Harris using an online system available for the first time this election, says she can’t stand Trump but admits that for many in her community, “it’s hard to vote for Kamala.”

“Under their (Harris and Biden) administrations, the cost of food has increased enormously. People see this. many.”

Martinez says he knows people of all generations who lean Republican.

“I think this might be a reason for them to start voting for Trump because they see that when he was president, food didn’t cost as much.”