Inside the Harris campaign's push to connect with Native American voters

by Michelle Griffith, Minnesota Reformer
 

Minnesota Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan on Oct. 2 helped launch the Harris-Walz campaign’s new Native American coalition, seeking to energize the often overlooked but increasingly important Indigenous vote.

“Native people will absolutely help decide the results of this election,” Flanagan told the ballroom of Native leaders and attendees at the Mystic Lake Center in Prior Lake. “Native voters in Arizona in 2020 absolutely helped to deliver the presidential race for Biden-Harris, and that’s why I’m so grateful to be here with you … to talk about everything that we can do in this moment.”

Flanagan—a member of the White Earth Band of Ojibwe—would become the nation’s first Native American woman to serve as governor if Gov. Tim Walz is elected vice president.

In August, Vice President Kamala Harris made an appeal to Native voters at a rally in Arizona, telling the crowd that as president she would honor Native American treaties.

“I will always honor tribal sovereignty and respect tribal self-determination and fight for a future where every Native person can realize their aspirations, and every Native community is a place of opportunity,” Harris said.