FORT DEFIANCE, Ariz. — At an elementary faculty manner out in rural northeastern Arizona, on a sunny Saturday afternoon, the Unbelievable Hulk was signing autographs.
Hulk was an enormous draw on this distant neighborhood in Navajo Nation. A whole bunch of individuals turned out for an opportunity to satisfy him — effectively, the actor who performs him within the newest Marvel motion pictures, Mark Ruffalo — on the Tséhootsooí Major Studying Heart. Folks drove so far as 19 hours, throughout state strains and with automobiles full of children. Some adults even admitted that whereas they got here for the official gathering, an Indigenous voter mobilization occasion, they wouldn’t flip down an opportunity to satisfy a well-known actor.
“I’m an active voter. I don’t think that’s enough these days. So, I try to be more than just that,” mentioned Hondo Louis, 50, who was peering round a tree for a Ruffalo sighting as he spoke. “But also, having a celebrity who’s going to lend support to something I believe in.”
Everybody got here for an exercise, too: a 3-mile stroll to a neighborhood polling station. Early voting within the state had begun a couple of days earlier, and residents of all ages — teenagers on skateboards, elders in wheelchairs — introduced their ballots to forged at Fort Defiance Highway Yard, a facility that might be open specifically for the occasion.
Forward of the stroll, folks talked loosely about what mattered to them within the election. Girls’s rights. Higher roads. Broadband service.
A lot of the attendees stay in Navajo Nation, the most important Native American reservation within the nation. It’s roughly the scale of West Virginia and residential to practically 400,000 registered tribal members throughout three states. Poverty is excessive. School graduates are scarce. Almost 1 in 5 folks don’t have medical insurance. Large swaths of land haven’t been developed in any respect, providing drivers gorgeous views of mesas and desert vegetation on the lengthy and dusty roads between cities.
It took HuffPost 13 hours to get to Window Rock, the capital of the reservation, from Washington, D.C., and one other 13 hours to get again. The closest main airport is in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and that’s nonetheless two and a half hours away by automobile.
Most of Navajo Nation relies in northeast Arizona, a pivotal state that Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are preventing to win in these closing weeks earlier than the presidential election. Tribes right here could possibly be key to deciding who wins.
President Joe Biden received Arizona by simply over 10,000 votes in 2020, thanks partly to an enormous spike in Indigenous voter turnout. Specifically, voters in Apache, Navajo and Coconino counties ― all of which overlap with Navajo Nation ― forged greater than 52,000 votes, serving to Biden change into the primary Democrat to win the state since 1996. In Navajo County alone, roughly 66% of registered voters in Navajo precincts voted, which was practically a 13% enhance over the earlier presidential election. Greater than 83% of voters in Navajo Nation precincts went for Biden over Trump.
This isn’t misplaced on Harris and Trump, who’re locked in a decent race and closely courting voters in Arizona. Each campaigns have groups on the bottom concentrating on tribes, and each candidates have descended on the state within the final couple of weeks.
Harris held an Oct. 10 rally in Chandler, the place she met with Native American youth leaders from throughout the state. Her operating mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, was in Arizona on Oct. 9 to go to the Gila River Indian Reservation. Trump was in Prescott Valley on Oct. 13, and his operating mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, held occasions in Tucson and Mesa earlier within the month, too.
However neither Republican engaged immediately with tribes throughout their go to.
Throughout HuffPost’s go to to Navajo Nation, it was clear that Harris is resonating right here greater than Trump. On the lone freeway into Window Rock, two huge billboards caught out in an in any other case huge panorama of scrub crops and mesas. Each featured distinct photographs of Trump’s eyes, and beneath, warnings of the risk he poses to girls’s reproductive rights and of his ties to Mission 2025, the conservative Heritage Basis’s far-right coverage roadmap for a second Trump presidency.
And through Saturday’s stroll, the place a number of folks carried indicators celebrating the facility of their vote, a couple of particularly advocated for one candidate: Harris.
“I’ve heard enough. And I’ve read enough. And I’m a motivated voter. And I know B.S. when I hear it,” mentioned Louis, who prompt he didn’t belief Trump. “I feel like I can look somebody in the eye and decide really quickly if they’ve got my vote. Harris and Walz got my vote.”
Sharon Chischilly for HuffPost
The voter march, referred to as “Walk to the Polls: Honoring 100 Years of Citizenship and Beyond,” was organized by Defend the Sacred, a bunch targeted on empowering Indigenous youth. Navajo native Allie Redhorse Younger launched it in 2020 to mobilize younger folks to assist gradual the unfold of COVID-19 in Navajo Nation, which was devastated by the pandemic. She has since expanded the group’s focus to civic engagement and voting.
Younger’s major aim is to deliver the voting course of to Navajo folks, lots of whom would in any other case need to journey lengthy distances — some so far as 140 miles spherical journey to the closest publish workplace — simply to register. A number of folks on the reservation nonetheless haven’t any water or electrical energy at dwelling, by no means thoughts entry to the web.
“It’s incredibly hard to organize in a rural reservation community, especially around voting,” she informed HuffPost. “That’s what I’ve learned in four years of doing this. But I’m constantly telling those funders out there, ‘You guys are neglecting an important voting bloc, and resources need to come to our communities because we make the difference. We do.’”
Younger famous that Navajo Nation is 27,000 sq. miles, most of which is in Arizona, and about 170,000 Navajos nonetheless stay on the reservation.
“That’s a lot of people we’re not engaging with,” she mentioned. “I’ve had people say, ‘Why can’t we just put on an event in Phoenix?’ No, because our people live five hours from there.”
Some folks drove in from a lot farther away than Phoenix for Younger’s occasion. Maggie Sam, 34, got here in from Blanding, Utah, and introduced her 19-year-old daughter, Pure Yellowman. Each have been clearly excited to satisfy Ruffalo however mentioned they have been wanting to vote, too. Each deliberate to vote for Harris.
“I stand by a lot of things she represents herself, and for us too,” mentioned Sam. “And I really don’t really like the other opponent. So, she has my vote.”
She mentioned it issues lots to her that Harris is a girl of shade, at the same time as Harris has leaned out from showcasing her id on the marketing campaign path.
“She’s a minority. And we are too,” mentioned Sam. “We’re brown-skinned.”
Yellowman, who shall be a first-time voter, mentioned the primary video she noticed of Harris was of her speaking about girls’s rights. She mentioned it actually affected her.
“I like that a lot,” mentioned Yellowman, who was holding a portray of the Hulk that she made and deliberate to offer to Ruffalo. “I feel more drawn to her.”
Requested which was extra thrilling to her, assembly a film star or voting for Harris, the 19-year-old mentioned softly, “Both.”
Defend the Sacred’s technique is fairly easy: Younger hosts enjoyable and culturally related occasions that draw out Indigenous youth, and whereas they’re there, will get them registered to vote. This 12 months, for the primary time, Younger teamed up with a grassroots group, Arizona Native Vote, to handle voter registration and to remain engaged with occasion attendees effectively after the occasions are over.
Consider it as a one-two punch for Indigenous civic engagement: Defend the Sacred places collectively thrilling occasions that younger folks need to come to, and Arizona Native Vote connects with them whereas they’re there and provides them to its voter database. It then stays in contact with them year-round to maintain them concerned and energetic.
“We do, like, the cool event, and [Arizona Native Vote is] there to do that work,” mentioned Younger. “What I realized — because in 2020 and 2022, we were doing similar events — is, what difference are we going to make if we get people to the polls and they’re not registered to vote?”
“So I said, OK, we’ve got to put in the work on the voter registration side,” she mentioned.
Final month, Defend the Sacred held a “Skate for Democracy” occasion in Tuba Metropolis, that includes a skateboarding competitors and heavy metallic live performance the place younger folks may additionally register to vote. One other occasion, “Saddle up for Change,” was a six-stop horseback journey throughout the reservation, with folks visiting rural communities to register voters and replace their registration standing. The occasions have been successful, and Arizona Native Vote was there for the latter.
“We’re the ground team,” mentioned Jaynie Parrish, government director of Arizona Native Vote. “We know the voters. We know what needs to be done. We know precincts on tribal lands.”
Parrish launched her nonprofit in early 2023 after years of mobilizing Indigenous voters within the state through the Democratic Celebration. She and her group have been parsing by way of precinct information to single out registered voters who didn’t vote in 2020 or 2022 and goal them for engagement. They aim new voters, like highschool and school college students, and so-called “voting influencers,” individuals who often vote and might affect their relations to do the identical.
“2022 was good,” Parrish mentioned of her voter contact efforts that 12 months. “Our two counties were the only ones in the whole state that saw an increase in voter turnout. Apache and Navajo County. It’s because we do this work year-round.”
“It was a slight increase,” she added, “but still an increase.”
Sharon Chischilly for HuffPost
The stroll itself carried cultural significance past the present electoral cycle. Younger tied it to the 100-year anniversary of the signing of the Indian Citizenship Act, which granted U.S. citizenship to Native People. (The irony of being granted rights on their very own land was not misplaced on Younger or on anybody who is aware of what irony means, of us.)
The trek was additionally impressed by the Navajo Lengthy Stroll of 1864, when the U.S. authorities compelled Navajo folks from their homelands and made them stroll greater than 400 miles from Fort Defiance — the situation of Saturday’s occasion — to Bosque Redondo, New Mexico. Hundreds of Navajos died throughout that stroll, which was the aim of the U.S. authorities.
Younger needed to attach her occasion to that darkish period to have a good time how far the Navajo folks have come. In a nod to that effort, a number of folks wearing conventional Indigenous clothes for Saturday’s stroll.
One younger Navajo girl carrying deer disguise wrap moccasins, which have skinny soles and aren’t precisely constructed for lengthy walks on pavement, needed to pause as a result of her shoe was unraveling. “It hurts a lot,” she informed HuffPost, standing on the facet of the highway as mates have been serving to to wrap her shoe again up. Nonetheless, she mentioned she needed to complete the stroll in them.
“We’ve survived genocide, you know?” Younger mentioned later. “So today’s event was a powerful demonstration of our survival.”
Regardless of the route being solely 3 miles, the stroll was an all-day affair. Earlier than heading out, folks gathered in a college parking zone within the intense Arizona solar as Fleetwood Mac’s “Rumours” blasted on a speaker and organizers handed out voter guides and T-shirts. There was an Apache ceremonial dance, with the smells of burning sage wafting by way of the air. And later, when the stroll ended, Younger hosted an hours-long pizza get together on the close by Navajo Nation Museum the place folks may get images with Ruffalo and different actors participating within the day’s occasions, Wilmer Valderrama and Cara Jade Myers.
On the end line, on the dust highway exterior of Fort Defiance Highway Yard, Parrish had a desk arrange with a stack of voter guides and T-shirts that includes a personality from the FX present “Reservation Dogs.” The shirts referenced a phrase usually used within the present, “Don’t be a shit ass. Vote.”
Native People have lengthy confronted limitations to voting. Folks on reservations don’t all the time have conventional mailing addresses, so the U.S. Postal Service received’t mail them ballots. Some voter ID necessities, like the necessity to have a state-issued ID versus a tribal ID, have made it harder for voters on distant reservations. Poor infrastructure, like the type that exists in components of Navajo Nation, can imply unusable roads and nonexistent web service for election after election.
They hit one other impediment on this stroll: a locked gate exterior of the polling station.
The power at Fort Defiance Highway Yard was normally solely open from Monday by way of Thursday. However the entrance gate was purported to have been unlocked for the occasion, with a poll field accessible exterior the constructing for dropping off votes. Younger had confirmed with Apache County officers upfront that the gate can be open for folks to stroll in and truly forged ballots.
Standing in entrance of the chained-up gate, Younger informed the gang {that a} county official had texted her through the stroll to say there weren’t any employees out there on a Saturday afternoon to drive out to the positioning and unlock the gate. She urged attendees to as an alternative drop off their ballots at a publish workplace close to the museum they have been headed to.
“We’re standing in front of a locked fence because on the Navajo Nation, our early polling sites have limited hours,” Younger mentioned. “I am disappointed that the gate is closed and we’re locked out. But thank you to those who brought your ballots.”
“They are trying to make it hard to vote,” Ruffalo later declared onstage on the pizza get together, to applause. “The idea is to make you feel cynical about voting. It’s the bad guys who are making you feel cynical about voting because voting is power.”
“We saw what happened in the last election,” he added, referring to excessive Indigenous voter turnout. “We now have a Native American woman sitting in the Cabinet of the United States president.”
Sharon Chischilly for HuffPost
Miles down the highway in Window Rock, some Navajo locals didn’t know something about this stroll. However they’d sturdy emotions about voting on this presidential election.
“Don’t get me started about politics,” laughed Marjorie Francisco, 62, as she sipped her espresso within the foyer of the modest High quality Inn Navajo Nation Capital.
The resort restaurant, referred to as Diné Restaurant — Diné is a time period Navajo folks use to confer with themselves — was a neighborhood scorching spot. Folks steadily streamed in from miles away, to not keep on the resort however to come back in for a scorching meal of mutton stew and fry bread, and for some dialog.
Francisco, who has lived on the reservation for her total life, mentioned she plans to vote for Harris largely as a result of she’s a girl of shade.
“She is a minority just like me,” she mentioned. “It feels exciting because a lot of us minorities, we’re left behind. We’re on the back burners.”
Francisco mentioned she doesn’t like the best way Trump presents himself and that he hasn’t supplied any plans for serving to individuals who aren’t wealthy. “Us lower class, I consider myself as lower class,” she mentioned. “I make less than $50,000 a year. It’s like, what are you [Trump] going to do for us?”
Francisco lives in a trailer within the city of Ganado along with her husband, Ed. She mentioned they only received water and electrical energy of their dwelling two years in the past, which was a giant enchancment over their earlier lifestyle: driving an hour and a half to the city of Holbrook simply to take a bathe.
They shared tales of sleeping of their automobile in a Burger King parking zone for a number of nights when the miles-long dust highway to their dwelling was buried in toes of snow. They talked about their neighborhood’s struggles with medication and alcohol. Francisco works in a neighborhood hospital and mentioned she’s seen younger folks coming in so strung out on meth or fentanyl that medical doctors needed to tie them down and put them to sleep, simply to calm them down.
Ed, who solely gave his first identify, mentioned his native postal workplace needed to take away its hand sanitizers as a result of folks have been stealing them to drink them and attempt to get drunk from the rubbing alcohol in them. Each mentioned they have been glad to listen to concerning the Defend the Sacred occasion down the highway.
“It seems like nobody just, kind of, usually cares about the youth,” mentioned Ed, earlier than suggesting Harris is an exception. “I think that’s where Kamala comes in. She’s energetic. She does her moves. One of the ads where she was dancing, I was like, oh! She’s got some moves!”
Ed mentioned he worries concerning the destiny of his neighborhood if Trump wins, partly due to his ties to Mission 2025. Amongst different issues, the Heritage Basis’s far-right 900-page presidential transition guidebook would take a wrecking ball to public lands.
“Our nation is at stake. Our homeland is at stake,” he warned. “If Trump gets back in there, we’re going to lose it.”
Ed mentioned he doesn’t speak about it a lot, however that he and different elders in his neighborhood imagine that Trump was prophesied in Navajo tradition as somebody who was going to return from one other world to “take us all back, to have us lose everything.” In one other Navajo prophecy, he mentioned, a girl of shade emerges as a pacesetter who helps the tribe.
“I see that now,” he mentioned. “I have a real strong cultural background with traditional knowledge. My grampy, he did these things, he said, ‘I’m not going to see it, but I think you will.’”
Ed didn’t give many particulars on this Navajo prophecy. He lowered his voice when he spoke of it, and mentioned it’s not one thing he tells his mates that he sees occurring.
“We don’t discuss this,” he mentioned. Requested why he shared this story with HuffPost, Ed mentioned merely, “You asked me about it.”
“You’re here talking about it. You come from Washington,” he added. “That’s just the kind of knowledge that we have.”
Sharon Chischilly for HuffPost
With early voting now underway in Arizona, Parrish and her group are making their closing push to make sure tribal residents end up to vote. She’s received 20 paid staffers on the bottom working with 5 tribes within the state: Navajo, Hopi, White Mountain Apache, Tohono Oʼodham and San Carlos Apache.
She mentioned her aim is to hit a 2% enhance in Indigenous voter turnout over 2020. As a part of her efforts to achieve younger voters, Parrish and her group have gone into 10 excessive faculties within the final semester to speak on to college students, principally seniors, about civics and voting. Arizona Native Vote will hold partaking with these college students effectively past November.
“What we’re doing there is establishing that relationship. We are not a one-and-done group,” she mentioned. In the end, she mentioned, her aim is to develop Arizona Native Vote into a strong statewide operation like Truthful Battle, the voting rights nonprofit led by Georgia politician and voting rights activist Stacey Abrams.
“I want Fair Fight, but I want to do it here in Arizona with tribes,” Parrish mentioned, “because there’s no excuse why we can’t have that.”
Again on the High quality Inn, Francisco conceded that for all of the years she’s been voting, she nonetheless feels disillusioned with the system. She mentioned she feels just like the Electoral School erases votes like hers, and introduced up former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton shedding the election in 2016 regardless of successful the favored vote.
However perhaps for the primary time, Francisco mentioned she felt like her vote in 2020 actually did matter.
“I always say, ‘Why do I vote?’” she mentioned as Ed nodded close by. “But then, I see that my vote does make a difference. My vote does make a difference.”
