Indigenous women could make history in upcoming U.S. midterm elections
Deb Haaland is running for governor of New Mexico, while Mary Peltola, Peggy Flanagan and N'kiyla (Jasmine) Thomas are running for seats in the U.S. Senate. No Indigenous woman has ever been elected to either role.
In some states with close races, Indigenous voters could be deciding factor, say experts
Jackie McKay · CBC News
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Indigenous women could make history in the U.S. midterm elections next week.
Deb Haaland is running for governor of New Mexico, while Mary Peltola, Peggy Flanagan and N'kiyla (Jasmine) Thomas are running for seats in the U.S. Senate. No Indigenous woman has ever been elected to either role, but that could change on Nov. 3.
Haaland, a Democrat and member of the Laguna Pueblo, was one of two Native American women elected to Congress in 2018. Two years later she became the first Indigenous person to serve as secretary of the Interior — the department that manages the nation's natural resources, cultural heritage sites, and works with Native Americans on treaty obligations — a post she held until 2025.
Now Haaland has set her sights on the New Mexico governorship.
Data collected by Advanced Native Political Leadership (ANPL) and shared with CBC News, shows at least 359 Native American, Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian candidates are running for public office across 36 states in 2026, compared to 268 across 25 states in 2024.
The majority are running for local office. Of the Indigenous candidates running on the federal ticket, half are women.
Jordan James Harvill, a member of the Cherokee Nation and descendant of the Choctaw Nation, is senior director of national programs for ANPL — an Indigenous-led organization that works to increase Indigenous representation in public office, through training, research and programming.
He said women comprise up to 80 per cent of applications for ANPL leadership programs.
"It just happens to be that Native women are the ones who are doing a lot of the work in community and so they are the ones who were best positioned to run for office and represent the community when the time comes," Harvill said.
Mary Peltola, a Democrat running for the U.S. Senate seat in Alaska, addresses supporters on Aug. 18 in Anchorage, Alaska. (Mark Thiessen/Associated Press)
It appears the leadership programs are paying off. Harvill said Native American women who run for office are outperforming men.
"They're running and winning at something around 10 percentage points higher than men overall," Harvill said.
Many of the women hoping to make history with a seat in the U.S. Senate have already broken glass ceilings.
Peltola, who is Yup'ik, is the Democratic candidate running to represent Alaska in the U.S. Senate. She's already made history as the first Alaska Native person elected to Congress and the first woman to hold Alaska’s House seat.
Flanagan, a Democrat hoping to represent Minnesota in the U.S. Senate, is the lieutenant governor of Minnesota, making her the current highest-ranking Indigenous woman elected to executive office in the U.S. She is Ojibway and a member of White Earth Nation.
Peggy Flanagan, the Democratic lieutenant governor of Minnesota, has her sights set on the U.S. Senate. (Ellen Schmidt/Associated Press)
Thomas, a Democrat, is a Chickasaw citizen with no political history who is running for U.S. Senate in Oklahoma.
Harvill said that according to ANPL's research, nearly half of all Native American candidates over the last five years have won their races.
"Which is a pretty high win rate overall, particular for many of them who are running in some of the most competitive and challenging districts in the United States," Harvill said.
Native American voters could be 'deciding factor'
There are 4.7 million eligible Native American voters in the U.S., according to a report from the Native American Rights Fund (NARF).
According to the report, only 66 per cent of eligible Indigenous voters are registered.
"I believe that Native people are the most significant voting block in the country and will determine the president in 2028," Harvill said.
Allison Neswood, a member of the Navajo Nation and senior staff attorney at NARF, said who is in power both at the federal and local level "can be very much influenced by Native voters."
Navajo attorney Allison Neswood, is senior staff attorney at the Native American Rights Fund. (Cliff Owen/Associated Press)
Neswood said Native American voters in states such as Arizona and Wisconsin can determine the outcome of elections.
"It's not the whole ball game for sure, but it's certainly one of the leverage pieces that our communities have and in the fight for our rights," Neswood said.
OJ Semans, a member of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe in South Dakota and executive director of Four Directions Native Vote - Indian Country, said Native Americans have significant leverage in states such as Wisconsin, Michigan, Nevada and Georgia and "have the power to decide who is going to sit in D.C."
Candidates in these states won by slim margins in recent federal elections, he said, and the number of Indigenous people of voting age in those states exceeds the winning margins.
"If we're able to mobilize and get Natives to the polls, they could actually be the deciding factor in who gets elected," Semans said.
All political stripes
Jean Schroedel, a professor emerita of political science at Claremont Graduate University in Clairmont, Calif., said when it comes to voting preference, Indigenous people run the gamut.
"When you talk about Indigenous people in the United States, they go from extremely conservative MAGA [Make America Great Again], all the way to DSA [Democratic Socialists of America] and every place in between," Schroedel said.
Francine Bradley-Arthur, a Navajo, stands in front of Freedom House, a grassroots pro-Trump campaign house she founded on the Navajo Nation in Window Rock, Ariz., in 2024. (AP)
Francine Bradley-Arthur, for example, is Navajo and a former Democrat. She said she began to campaign for President Donald Trump in part because she felt Native American communities in Arizona often didn’t feel the payoff despite longtime support for her former party.
The current secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, former senator Markwayne Mullin, is a member of the Cherokee Nation and a MAGA stalwart.
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"All those deportations and things that are going on as we speak are under his watch," Schoroedel said.
"He's in charge."
Two Native American incumbent Republicans will also be running for the House of Representatives in Oklahoma: Tom Cole, a member of the Chickasaw Nation, and Josh Brecheen, a member of the Choctaw Nation.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jackie McKay is a Métis journalist working for CBC Indigenous covering B.C., and winner of a 2025 Canadian Screen Award for best local reporter. She was a reporter for CBC North for more than five years spending the majority of her time in Nunavut. McKay has also worked in Whitehorse, Thunder Bay, and Yellowknife.
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