Native representation at the Republican National Convention

By Pauly Denetclaw | ICT News

The official nomination of former president Donald Trump as his party’s candidate for this year’s election will happen during the Republican National Convention this week in Milwaukee, Wis.

The four-day convention starts on July 15 and will end on July 18, the last event is likely to be Trump’s acceptance speech. The convention happens every four years and Republican delegates from all over the country come to officially vote on who their party will nominate for the presidential election, said John Tahsuda, ICT’s regular political contributor.

Unlike the Democratic Party, which has been in turmoil over their party’s nomination since President Joe Biden’s debate performance on June 27, the GOP’s presidential nomination process is likely to go as planned.

“Republicans have their nominee set,” Tahsuda, Kiowa, told ICT. “There’s no dissent against him being the nominee.”

As the likely Republican party nominee, Trump now has to appeal to a more national voter base with an emphasis on battleground states that will determine the election. The key states this year are Arizona, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Nevada, Georgia and Michigan. The Native vote has the power to swing the election in Arizona, Wisconsin and Nevada.

Battleground states will likely be the focus for Trump’s campaign going forward.

“The only polls that matter are the ones in those few battleground states, because so many states are settled,” Holly Cook Macarro, ICT’s regular political contributor, said. “We know which way they’re going to fall. The issues that matter in those six battleground states are the ones that are going to get the most attention.”

The Native vote in 2020 was instrumental in getting Biden elected, coming out in droves in Arizona getting the state to ultimately go blue. While some polls have Arizona leaning red, it leaves out the context of Native American and Alaska Native voters. Some 80 percent of Native American and Alaska Native voters in Apache and Navajo County in the state are registered Democrat and vote accordingly.

A fact that didn’t go unnoticed in Arizona and the Native vote has since been gerrymandered, allegedly.

Native Voters Alliance Nevada has been working year round on voter engagement since 2020. The nonprofit along with the Nevada Indian Commission have been able to advocate for solutions to address some of the barriers for Native voters in the state, like allowing the use of the Effective Absentee System for elections and increasing polling locations on tribal lands. In 2020, Native voters had the highest increase of turnout compared to any other group, voter engagement was up 25 percent.

American Indians, Alaska Natives and Native Hawaiians make up 5 percent of Nevada’s population according to a state profile by Advance Native Political Leadership. There are 28 federally recognized tribes in the state.

In Wisconsin, the 2020 presidential election was won by razor thin margins, nearly 21,000 votes, according to the AP. There are approximately 91,000 eligible Native voters in Wisconsin, making them a voting bloc that could swing the whole state, according to Four Directions Native Vote. There are 11 federally recognized tribes in Wisconsin. Native voter turnout, like in Nevada and Arizona, has only increased every election.

In a 2023 election for a Wisconsin Supreme Court Judge, there were a historic number of Native voters according to Four Directions Native Vote.

The convention itself

There will be a federal Indian policy roundtable, organized by Oklahoma Sen. Markwayne Mullin, who is Cherokee, on Wednesday, July 17 in the afternoon. The tribal leaders attending will be able to discuss the issues that are important to them.

Michael Stopp, ICT’s regular political contributor, has been a voting delegate and delegate alternate at the convention in the past.

“I went as a Marco Rubio delegate to the convention in 2016,” Stopp, Cherokee, said. “So when Marco Rubio dropped out, I was free to vote my conscience. I was not actually a restricted delegate. I could vote for whoever I wanted to.”

The main purpose of the convention is for delegates to vote on who they want as the party’s nominee but it's also where the policy platform for their respective candidate is cultivated and confirmed by the party.

There will be a couple Native delegates from Oklahoma who will be voting at the convention, according to Stopp. There will be some tribal leaders from the state who will also be in attendance. In the past, tribal leaders have made statements during the main events including former Navajo Nation Vice President Myron Lizer in 2020.

Lizer is expected to be on the Wednesday panel.

It has also been common in the past for the National Republican Congressional Committee or the National Republican Senate Committee to organize various events that are specific to tribal nations.

From Stopp’s perspective the Republican Party does care about the Native vote but there are policy differences at times with some tribal leaders.

“Sometimes because the Republican Party doesn’t agree with a stance that certain tribal leaders take doesn’t mean that the Republican Party doesn't care about Natives,” Stopp said. “It’s just a different policy viewpoint and sometimes that is portrayed as not caring about Indians. That’s an unfair assessment.”

“They talk a good game in terms of claiming to be doing a lot in Indian Country,” Cook Macarro said. “But the fact of the matter is, historically there’s been little investments in terms of any infrastructure.”

Oklahoma Rep. Tom Cole, Chickasaw and the longest-serving Indigenous member of Congress, is widely regarded as one of the top political strategists for the GOP. He has served as executive director of the National Republican Congressional Committee twice and was chief-of-staff for the Republican National Committee. Cole is an influential and powerful voice within the Republican Party.

He will likely be in attendance at the convention.

It will be very unlikely that Trump will address Native voters directly in his acceptance, according to Cook Macarro.

“I don’t expect there to be any mention of tribal issues from the former president at the Republican convention, that would be in and of itself extraordinary,” Cook Macarro, Red Lake Nation, said.

Trump and the Republican Party will probably steer clear of any public addresses about access to abortion care. The party softened its language on abortion care in a draft measure adopted last week. It no longer calls for a federal ban instead pushing for states to decide.

“National security, the economy, absolutely will be talked about,” Stopp said. “This concept of a woke environment is always red meat at things like this.”

Both Stopp and Cook Macarro agree that Trump is unpredictable which makes it challenging to predict what he will say during his acceptance speech.

He could talk about the legal cases against him which has been a rallying cry for his base.

“You see this idea of the people versus a big government, big corporations, and big institutions and the people feel a separation from the power players and the way they live their lives,” Stopp said. “They feel like they have less and less influence on both these big corporations and on the federal government who they think are in collusion and working hand in hand.”

Trump has successfully portrayed himself as someone outside this system who represents the local people and their interests, Stopp said.

“Donald Trump, a billionaire from New York, who was the ultimate insider has somehow marketed himself over the last eight years of being that person, of being the representative of people who feel this way,” Stopp said.

“This is really what the Democrats miss and it's what they've missed in the last year in their attacks on Donald Trump. Many of their attacks actually reinforce that perception of Donald Trump and in politics, more than even in marketing, perception is reality. There are people who are perceiving Donald Trump as a victim.”

Trump will likely make his acceptance speech on Thursday, July 18, the last night of the convention.

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