Tribal members owe it to themselves to vote and potentially play a decisive role in this year’s presidential election, G2E panelists said.
“Five of the seven (battleground) states have tribes in play,” said Stephen Roe Lewis, in his fourth term as governor of the Gila River Indian Community in Arizona. In a twist on the Democratic Party’s “blue wall,” he added that tribes possess “a Native wall,” thanks to their numbers in Arizona, Nevada, Michigan and Wisconsin. North Carolina, another swing state in the presidential race, had a Native American population of more than 130,000 in the 2020 Census, making it home to the largest concentration of American Indians east of the Mississippi River.
Holly Cook Macarro, who began knocking on doors and making phone calls as a child accompanying her mother doing work for campaigns, said Indian Country’s political views have changed over the past three decades, in large part because of tribal-gaming revenue. “I don’t recall there being this national Native vote and energy and the resources behind it that we see today,” she said. She added that young Native voters are demanding accountability from tribal leadership and political leaders “on issues that don’t always make it to the forefront” of tribal focus, including the war in Israel and climate justice.
The two spoke Oct. 8 at a Global Gaming Expo panel titled “Amplifying Tribal Influence in the 2024 Election,” Jason Giles, executive director of the Indian Gaming Association, moderated. Neither he nor the panelists recommended how tribal members should vote, emphasizing that each needs to make their preferences heard. However, Macarro has advised Democratic presidential campaigns for more than 20 years and Lewis was a Biden/Harris elector in 2020 and is a member of the Arizona Democratic Party Hall of Fame.
Macarro, who is principal at The Angle, a government-relations firm specializing in advocacy, strategic consulting, and tribal policy, said tribes have a long history of political activism, even though political participation “may seem painful at times” after years of broken treaties and other abuses of tribes. Lewis noted that this year marks the 100th anniversary of the federal law granting citizenship to Indians, but added, “That’s nothing to celebrate. It’s a cruel irony the First Nations were the last to be granted U.S. citizenship.”
Lewis, lauding a “historic” and “massive” get-out-the-vote effort among all Arizona tribes, said tribes everywhere should mobilize around important touchstones in their individual and collective histories. “We’re not telling people who to vote for. We’re telling people it’s important to vote. The act, in and of itself, is important.”
While the presidential race garners the most publicity, tribal members need to pay attention to congressional, state, local, and tribal elections as well. “Getting that electoral experience to work your way up puts us at the place where we’re at now, where we see so many Native members of Congress,” Macarro said. “All that infrastructure is creating an ecosystem that supports sovereignty candidates.”
Lewis said tribes’ sound stewardship of their gaming operations has contributed to their growing electoral influence. “It’s a testament to how much we’re giving back through our gaming compacts, in regards to employment and the supporting of the businesses in the region,” he said. “We’re seen as a positive economic force and that translates into real political power as well.”
Macarro said she’s seen a recent increase in young tribal leaders running county or municipal offices. “That’s part of the political infrastructure that just wasn’t there before.” She cited the work of IllumiNative, a Native-woman-led racial and social-justice organization founded in 2018 that aims to raise the visibility of Native people.
Indian Gaming Association president Ernie Stevens Jr., who attended the panel discussion, encouraged all in the audience to join the efforts to get friends, neighbors, and other tribal members to vote. “We’ve really got to get them there,” he said. “We’ve really got to show America how strong we are.”
