Native voters could swing US elections, but they’re asking politicians: What have you done for us?

DILKON, Ariz. (AP) — Felix Ashley’s red Toyota sends a plume of dust billowing along the sloping hills and boulders he traverses hours every week to pump water – the same roadway voters walk miles every four years to cast their ballots in presidential elections.

Here on this forgotten swath of the Navajo Nation, the largest Native American reservation in the United States, hardship is embedded into day-to-day life.

Nearly a third of homes like Ashley’s still don’t have running water. Soaring unemployment and poverty has pushed young Navajos, including most of Ashley’s children, to leave their sacred lands in search of jobs. Logistical and legal obstacles have long stood in the way of Arizona’s 420,000 Native citizens casting their vote.

“People lose trust in the government and they don’t – you don’t – care to vote anymore. People don’t get what they were promised,” said 70-year-old Ashley, whose family offers rides to hitchhikers to polls on Election Day.

Yet it is Native voters like him who could be key to winning Arizona and some of the most contested swing states in November. In 2020, Arizona voted for a Democratic president for the first time in decades, with President Joe Biden winning the race by around 10,500 votes.

Native Americans – who make up 5.2% of Arizona– saw a surge in turnout, voting in large numbers for the Democratic Party, according to a data analysis by the Associated Press.

The victory turned the heads of politicians from both parties, who now flock to some of the most remote swaths of Arizona as they try to close razor thin margins. Democrats are hoping to repeat the feat, while Republicans see an opportunity to use Native voters’ frustration with the economy as a chance to sweep up new votes.

“The Native vote has power, because they’re able to decide the next presidential election. Everybody knows that it’s going to come down to 15,000 or so votes in Arizona,” said Jacqueline De León, a voting rights attorney with the Native American Rights Fund and member of the Isleta Pueblo.

One Senate candidate hiked down the wall of the northern Havasu Canyon to a tribe accessible only by helicopter, mule or hours-long treks to win over votes. Another, tailed by floats in a local parade in Tuba City, roared “This is all in your hands. … Let’s show the rest of this state, the rest of this country that the Navajo vote is strong!”

Local fairs and flea markets are painted with blue and red campaign signs reading “Trump low prices” and others written in Native slang “Stoodis Harris” or “Let’s do this Harris.” Radio ads for both presidential candidates Donald Trump and Kamala Harris ring out on the radio every 30 minutes in homes far from the reach of cellphone signals.

But Native voters in Arizona have a simple question for candidates: What have you ever done for us?

The feeling of being forgotten is one that has long simmered among the 22 federally recognized tribes across Arizona, from rock homes pressed on the edge of high plateaus of the Hopi reservation, to the barren plains where Ashley pumps water to his family.

Dozens of people who spoke to the AP in the final weeks before the election expressed frustration with Democratic-leaning tribal governments, as bureaucracy and corruption scandals tie up the most basic development efforts, and politicians in Washington, who they say rarely use their seat at the table to push for them.

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