Indigenous voters — motivated in part by economic issues, land rights, tribal sovereignty and the preservation of language and culture — tended to support progressive priorities and liberal candidates in the November election, according to the National Electorate Voter Poll, which researchers at BSP Research, First Nations Development Institute and others shared last week.
Those findings stand in stark contrast to a National Exit Poll by Edison Research that claimed that 68% of Native voters voted for President-elect Donald Trump. That exit poll, which was widely shared online and across media networks after the election, falsely suggested that a large shift in Native voting patterns had occurred. “Native voices are rarely heard, and when people don’t hear from us, they make shit up,” said Michael Roberts (Tlingit), CEO of the Colorado-based First Nations Development Institute, pointing to the Edison Research poll.
Instead, the National Electorate Voter Poll by BSP Research found that 57% of the Native voters surveyed voted for Vice President Kamala Harris, while 39% voted for Trump. The majority also supported women’s right to abortion (85%), protecting families from climate change (89%), and expanding clean energy investments (88%), none of which are part of Trump’s agenda. “This is very useful information for the incoming Trump administration that we know is potentially going to move in a different direction on a number of these issues,” said Gabe Sanchez, director of research at BSP Research.
Other highlights showed that 15% respondents said this was their first time voting, and that support for Harris was higher among Native women, young voters and people who speak an Indigenous language at home.
What’s the bigger picture?
According to early analyses by voting rights advocates, this election cycle saw a lower turnout among some rural and urban Native communities. This tracks with nationwide findings for some voters compared to the last presidential election in 2020. But the reasons behind the drop in Native voter turnout are likely complicated, as are efforts to draw conclusions concerning voting patterns. The results of the National Exit Poll, distributed in early November by NBC News, CNN and others, were seized upon by conservative outlets and often reposted online devoid of context. Indigenous researchers and community advocates pointed out problems with the data that amounted to misinformation — the sample size was just 229 people, for example, and no polling locations on tribal lands were included. In an email to High Country News, Edison Research, which conducted the poll, agreed that while the poll met Edison’s criteria, it was limited in scope. “This data point from our survey should not be taken as a definitive word on the American Indian vote,” said Randy Brown at Edison Research.
The poll underscores the challenges involved in gathering accurate voting data that is reflective of Indigenous communities, which are not politically homogeneous. “Native people are often omitted from these types of conversations. But then to have the rare cases in which we are included being misrepresentations of our voices is equally as problematic,” said Stephanie Fryberg (Tulalip), professor of psychology at Northwestern University and founding director of the Research for Indigenous Social Action and Equity Center. Fryberg wrote a widely circulated op-ed for Native News Online detailing some of the issues with the Edison Research poll.
So, what did turnout look like in this election cycle?
Accurate voting data can be difficult to come by, because ballots are not attached to demographic information. Instead, voting trends must be cross-referenced with things like census data, which can also be inadequate. In an analysis done by the Native American Rights Fund in mid-November, preliminary voter turnout was down in Native-majority counties compared to the 2020 presidential election, dropping from 53% to 49% in 2024 — a decline of about 10,000 voters. That decline was echoed in majority-Native counties like Sioux County, North Dakota, and Todd County in South Dakota. Overall, NARF found, support for Harris was higher in majority-Native counties in Montana, South and North Dakota and Wisconsin, while Trump outperformed her in Oklahoma.
“Native people are often omitted from these types of conversations. But then to have the rare cases in which we are included being misrepresentations of our voices is equally as problematic.”
But this kind of analysis usually only applies to reservation communities where tribal lands and county voting data overlap. In urban areas or other places where Native people are not the majority, it can be harder to draw big-picture conclusions. “There’s no easy answer for that from the urban Native perspective,” said Janeen Comenote (Quinault), executive director at the National Urban Indian Family Coalition, which advocates for Indigenous families in urban areas. According to post-election analyses by the NUIFC, while turnout was down nationwide, the decline was less significant in urban areas where the coalition’s member organizations had a presence. And in two counties in swing states there was actually an increase in turnout: Wake County, North Carolina and Clark County, Nevada.
In November, after the Edison Research poll results were distributed, the NUIFC sent out its own survey, hoping to better understand how Native people connected to the coalition’s member organizations voted. According to Rio Fernandes, director of civic engagement at the NUIFC, 1,133 people responded, with 85% of urban respondents saying they voted for Harris, while 10% voted for Trump and 5% either voted for a third party or did not vote at all. For respondents living on reservations, 85% voted for Harris, 8% voted for Trump, and 7% voted for a third party or did not vote. But Comenote cautions that this survey was informal: “The primary reason is just to interrogate that graphic that came out from CNN and see if that was what we found” with the aid of a larger sample size and broader geographic spread.
How useful are polls, and what are their limits?
The methodology used in BSP Research’s National Electorate Voter Poll was much more nuanced than Edison Research’s survey: It screened out people who only claimed a distant ancestor as their sole connection to Native ancestry, for example. It also sought out a variety of respondents from reservation and urban areas and inquired about their political tribal priorities and whether they spoke a Native language at home.
While BSP’s poll did find that younger Indigenous men were more likely to vote Republican than older Native men, Roberts of First Nations Development Institute cautioned against reading too much into it. “I think folks are trying to find a way to indict Brown and Black voters for the loss in this election by the Democratic Party,” Roberts said. “And when you look at subgroup by subgroup, they’re still primarily voting for Democratic candidates,” adding that “we need to look somewhere else for who won and who lost this election for Candidate Harris.”
“I think folks are trying to find a way to indict Brown and Black voters for the loss in this election by the Democratic Party.”
One question that remains unanswered in the recent polls and surveys: What are the reasons behind the drop in turnout? There are several hypotheses; the Native American Rights Fund, for one, cited the ongoing accessibility barriers to getting Native voters to the polls, such as the long distances to polling sites and frequent rejection of tribal IDs. Comenote, meanwhile, noted that back in 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic led states to try novel approaches to ensure that people could vote. That election saw the highest turnout this century.
Overall, Indigenous researchers stressed the need for gathering more, and better, data regarding Native voters and doing so in collaboration with Native-led organizations. More accurate data sets can “help arm our Native community colleagues to make better cases for the work that they’re doing,” said Roberts. Political leaders in Indian Country agree. “Our communities, especially in rural and tribal areas, demand to be reported on with diligence and accuracy,” said Mark Macarro (Pechanga Band of Indians), president of the National Congress of American Indians in a statement about the Edison Research poll results. “Native voter influence must not be distorted and diminished.”
