Both parties court Navajo voters in battleground Arizona

Nearing the end of the annual Navajo Nation parade route last Saturday, the Arizona Republican Party’s float — pulled by an 18-wheeler and adorned with Trump-Vance campaign signs — came to a halt.

Some parade watchers, who lined Highway 264 with their lawn chairs, began booing. “Get out of here,” one woman shouted.

President Joe Biden won Arizona by just 10,000 votes – the first Democrat to do so since 1996 – and the state is once again a key battleground this year with Vice President Kamala Harris’ ascendance on the ticket seen as putting it back in play for Democrats.

The Navajo Nation makes up the largest tribe in Arizona, with about 131,000 members, according to the US Census. The presence of both parties at Saturday’s parade underscored the electoral importance of those tribe members, who could help make a difference not just in the race for the White House in Arizona, but in a key US Senate race that will shape the balance of power in Washington next year.

For the first time in its history, the Arizona GOP set up a field office in Window Rock, the capital of Navajo Nation, according to state GOP chair Gina Swoboda. And last Sunday, the state party, along with the Trump campaign and Republican National Committee, hosted another field office opening in Flagstaff.

“Democrats are very comfortable that they own this vote bloc,” Swoboda told CNN after the parade. “And no one owns anybody, and no one has the right to expect your vote. They have to earn your vote.”

Asked about the GOP’s reception at the parade, Swoboda said that it’s “important to not let that dissuade you” and that the Republican Party needs to be present in the community.

“If the Nation itself said we don’t want you, that would be different. … I feel that it’s urgent to do the outreach, and we’re not going to stop. As long as we are welcome, we will continue to be here,” she said, adding that “there’s no vote that I’m going to leave on the table.”

But the Harris campaign in Arizona says it’s not taking any votes for granted. It opened a field office in northeast Apache Junction, closer to several reservations, plans to spend on media campaigns in both English and in the Navajo language on Tribal radio, and hold early vote events in the Navajo community.

The campaign also walked the Navajo Nation parade route last weekend, which ran more than three miles long, with its float featuring a sign that read “skoden vote” — Indigenous slang for “let’s go then.”

Highlighting the stakes of the vote here, both Senate candidates – Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego and GOP nominee Kari Lake – joined the parade, greeting and shaking hands with attendees as part of their outreach to Indigenous voters. The area congressional district’s candidates – GOP Rep. Eli Crane and his Democratic challenger, former Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez, attended too, although the district is not seen as competitive this fall.

In one of the most crucial Senate races in the country, Lake and Gallego are vying to replace retiring independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, who still caucuses with Democrats. Defending her seat is a priority for Democrats looking to hold onto their narrow Senate majority.

This summer, Lake – who lost a 2022 gubernatorial bid – toured the Navajo Nation Museum, met with voters at the fairgrounds and visited the Navajo Code Talker Memorial with Navajo Nation’s former Vice President Myron Lizer, according to her campaign.

Gallego, who is attempting to visit all of Arizona’s 22 federally recognized tribes, told CNN that he’s working to get the Native American population out to vote.

“Democrats and Republicans don’t actually go and talk to our Tribal leadership, citizens — see what they actually need. They go to maybe one tribal nation and think that that represents everyone, and that’s not the case,” Gallego said on Saturday.

A Marine veteran, Gallego said his ties to the Navajo Nation stem from his military veteran friends from the tribe. His campaign website touts his push to improve access to health care and voting for Native Americans and his work highlighting the crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous women.

Voters at Saturday’s parade said they are ready to vote in the presidential race. Danielle Doctor, a 48-year-old Navajo Nation member and educator who made the five-hour journey from Phoenix for the parade with her family, said she’s backing Harris for president and was encouraged by the difference in the reactions to the two campaigns’ presence at the parade.

And she especially pointed to the historic potential of Harris’ candidacy – as she tries to become the first woman president – and how that could resonate. “I believe we have many strong, educated women, especially on the Navajo Nation. We’re a matrilineal society. Women run things here, and I love seeing a woman in office. I want to see that, I want that for my nieces and my students,” Doctor said.

Tom Ranger, a 67-year-old Republican and the owner of a movie theater in Window Rock, sees things differently. While claiming his party affiliation puts him in the minority here, he feels the sentiment among the tribe’s voters is changing and that they are turned off by the Biden-Harris administration’s handling of the economy.

But he and other voters from the Navajo Nation – regardless of political affiliation – with whom CNN spoke last weekend felt that more outreach could be done by both parties.

Navajo tribe members said they face challenges with access to water, groceries, electricity, internet and health care. A 2024 report from Democrats on the House Administration Committee found that Native Americans also face several barriers to voting, including having to travel long distances often on dirt or poorly maintained roads for in-person voting, inadequate transportation, slow mail service, and lack of residential addresses on reservations.

The US Supreme Court last month ruled that Arizona can enforce part of a law that requires would-be voters to document their citizenship before registering to vote on a state form. The 2022 law had been challenged by the Biden administration, as well as tribal and civil rights groups who felt it would disproportionately impact Native Americans.

Diné, or Navajo, activist Allie Young has been organizing to get Native American voters to the polls through trail rides since the 2020 election. This weekend, she will lead “Saddle up for Change” – a six-stop, multiday horseback ride, to honor ancestors who rode miles to vote because they didn’t have vehicles, through the rural parts of Navajo Nation to register voters and update their registration status.

Her “Ride to the Polls” campaign in 2020, she wrote for CNN the following year, was inspired by “the insufficient number of ballot drop boxes, early voting and Election Day polling places, and very limited hours of operation across the Navajo Nation.”

Democratic voter Loretta Charley, who traveled from the rural Navajo community of Rocky Ridge for last weekend’s parade, stressed the importance of voting, but told CNN that she feels that she has not seen the improvement in infrastructure within her community.

“Personally, I’m very hopeful when I cast my vote, but then the promises made when they’re on their campaign, whatever they promised on their platform, it dwindles down. And I understand how the red tape goes, you know,” she said. “Not everybody wants to help the Indigenous.”

Her remote part of the Navajo Nation rarely gets visitors, let alone campaigns knocking on her door.

“I think we’re neglected because of the distance. I won’t say forgotten, but I will say we’re neglected because of the distance so far out there,” she said. “Who’s going to drive clear out there?”