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Native Americans Score Historic Wins in Midterms After Years of Efforts
Deb Haaland of New Mexico was elected to the House of Representatives on Tuesday, joining Sharice Davids of Kansas as the first Native American women elected to Congress.
Credit
Brian Snyder/Reuters


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Deb Haaland of New Mexico was elected to the House of Representatives on Tuesday, joining Sharice Davids of Kansas as the first Native American women elected to Congress.CreditCreditBrian Snyder/Reuters
By Simon Romero
Nov. 7, 2018

PHOENIX — Two states sent the first Native American women to Congress. Another elected its first Native American lieutenant governor. A Navajo candidate won a pivotal county race in an area long dominated by a white minority.

Native Americans notched historic electoral wins on Tuesday, in a country where indigenous people were not granted the right to vote until 1924.

The victories, in an array of federal, state and local races, did not come easily. They took decades of grass-roots organizing, legal battles to redraw voting districts favoring white candidates, new sources of campaign money and the harnessing of visceral reactions to President Trump’s use of slurs against Native Americans.

And they took strong candidates with a winning combination of political credentials and personal experiences that resonated with voters.

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“The candidates themselves were just exceptional in this year’s races,” said Mellor Willie, a founder of 7Gen Leaders, a “super PAC” formed this year to bolster emerging Native American political leaders. “But it often comes down to money, and that’s where we came in.”

7Gen Leaders was a crucial source of financing for the two Native American women elected this week to the United States House of Representatives: Deb Haaland, Democrat of New Mexico, a community organizer and a member of Laguna Pueblo; and Sharice Davids, Democrat of Kansas, a former mixed martial arts fighter and a member of the Ho-Chunk Nation.

“These are Native women who have paid their dues for years to make this moment happen,” said Mr. Willie, whose organization receives funding from abortion rights activists and tribes including the Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation of California and the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community of Minnesota.

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Ms. Davids, a member of the Ho-Chunk Nation, at a victory party on Tuesday. She mounted a campaign highlighting her heritage, sexual orientation and martial-arts mettle.
Credit
Colin E. Braley/Associated Press


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Ms. Davids, a member of the Ho-Chunk Nation, at a victory party on Tuesday. She mounted a campaign highlighting her heritage, sexual orientation and martial-arts mettle.CreditColin E. Braley/Associated Press
Ms. Haaland cut her teeth for years as a community organizer and as the chairwoman of New Mexico’s Democratic Party. She came out swinging against the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, discussed the challenges of being a single mother and promoted indigenous sovereignty as a professed “35th-generation New Mexican.” In a relatively liberal district encompassing Albuquerque, that messaging worked.

“I’ve been organizing in New Mexico for close to 20 years, so it’s not like people weren’t familiar with me or what I stand for,” Ms. Haaland, 57, said in a telephone interview on Wednesday. “We have an extremely divisive president who disparages so many people. I felt like it was just time to stand up with a positive campaign.”

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Another congressional race in New Mexico involving a Native American candidate was decided on Wednesday night, with the Republican, Yvette Herrell, a member of the Cherokee Nation, losing to Xochitl Torres Small, a Democrat and water rights lawyer, after absentee ballots were counted. Unlike many Native American politicians in other races, Ms. Herrell did not promote her indigenous heritage while campaigning.

In Kansas, Ms. Davids can add another first to the record books: She is the first openly lesbian candidate to be elected to Congress from the state. She attended Cornell Law School and was a White House fellow in the Obama administration before mounting a campaign highlighting her heritage, sexual orientation and martial-arts mettle.

“It’s 2018 and women, Native Americans, gay people, the unemployed and underemployed have to fight like hell to survive,” Ms. Davids, 38, said in one of her campaign ads. “It’s clear Trump and the Republicans in Washington don’t give a damn about anyone like me or anyone who doesn’t think like them.”

Jean Schroedel, a professor of political science at Claremont Graduate University in California, who studies Native American voting rights, said Ms. Davids’s campaign offered a blueprint for other candidates seeking to frame issues from a Native American perspective.

“Sharice not only won but just took out a rising star of the Republican Party,” Professor Schroedel said, referring to Ms. Davids’s opponent, Representative Kevin Yoder, a four-term incumbent who championed conservative causes. “Democrats have been targeting that seat for several cycles and she showed them how to get it done.”

The election of Ms. Haaland and Ms. Davids will double the number of Native Americans in Congress. They will join two Republicans from Oklahoma, Tom Cole, a member of the Chickasaw Nation, and Markwayne Mullin, of the Cherokee Nation.