Native American communities were decisive voting blocs in key states in 2020, and with the 2024 race remaining stubbornly close, both campaigns sought to mobilize Native voters in the final weeks of the presidential election.

But when it comes to messaging, the two campaigns couldn’t be more different, many Native voters said. It’s been 100 years since Native Americans were granted the right to vote with the passage of the Snyder Act in 1924, and whichever campaign is able to leverage its power in this election could swing some of the most hotly contested counties in the country.

In swing states like Arizona, North Carolina, Michigan and Nevada, candidates — especially Vice President Kamala Harris — have targeted Native Americans with radio ads and events on tribal lands featuring speakers like Bill Clinton and Donald Trump Jr.

Native American voters tend to favor Democrats, but they are more likely to vote Republican than Latinos or African Americans, said Gabriel R. Sanchez, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. He said they are one of the least partisan and youngest voting demographics in the country, often motivated by issues that directly affect their communities, such as land rights and environmental protection.

In 2020, the Biden administration campaigned in several tribal nations in critical states like Wisconsin and Arizona, and precincts on tribal lands there helped a lot. tilt the election for the Democrats. “Arizona was like a textbook example of what it could look like if you make those early investments,” Sanchez said.

As part of a $370 million ad campaign released this month, including for more reservations, Harris said the U.S. should honor treaty rights and uphold tribal sovereignty. Crystal Echo Hawk, CEO of Illuminative, a nonprofit that works to increase the visibility of Native Americans, said these commitments, along with the economy and environmental protection, are the top issues Native voters identified in Illuminative’s polls.

Echo Hawk said those investments could pay off again for Democrats. “We haven’t seen the same kind of targeted messaging and communication from the Trump campaign,” she said. Harris also stands to inherit some of the goodwill left over from his administrations Barack Obama and Joe Bidenshe said.

Obama has stepped up consultation with tribes on issues such as land protection and criminal justice, and Biden has appointed more than 80 Native Americans to senior leadership positions.

“The moment the announcement came that Harris was entering the race, you saw people organizing overnight,” Echo Hawk said. And Trump, she said, will have to contend with his own reduction of the Bears Ears National Monument by 85% and the revival of a Keystone XL Pipelineboth unpopular with indigenous peoples. “I think a lot of these people remember that,” she said.

Friday, Biden formally apologized for the country’s support of Native American boarding schools and its legacy of abuse and cultural destruction. Although it was seen as long overdue, it was met with praise from tribal leaders. On Saturday, vice presidential candidate and Minnesota governor Tim Walz will campaign in the Navajo Nation.

Trump’s campaign has not run ads targeting Native Americans, but U.S. Sen. Markwayne Mullin, an Oklahoma Republican and citizen of the Cherokee Nation, singled out the former president for Native communities in North Carolina, a swing state that was decided in May less than a point in 2020.

On a crisp evening earlier this month, Mullin sat with Donald Trump Jr. and the former Hawaii representative. Tulsi Gabbarda former Democrat who recently announced she was joining the Republican Party, on a small stage in front of several hay bales to answer questions from an audience of several hundred people. They discussed issues ranging from the economy to tribal self-determination.

The event took place on a small ranch in Red Springs, North Carolina, part of the traditional homelands of Mullin’s ancestors and the current home of the Lumbee tribe, a state-recognized tribe with about 55,000 members.

Federal recognition of the Lumbee was opposed by several tribal nations, including the nearby Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians and Mullin’s own tribe, the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma. The Lumbee push for federal recognition has become a focal point for both campaigns and a rare issue on which both sides agree. Last month, Trump said he would sign legislation granting federal recognition to the Lumbee. Harris called the Lumbee tribal chairman last week to discuss the legislation.

“This is an injustice that needs to be remedied when it comes to the Lumbees,” Mullin told the crowd. “It’s absolutely absurd. It has to be done. I was so proud to hear President Trump say he was going to sign it.”

But Mullin soon touched on one of the many areas where the two candidates differ: energy policy. Emphasizing that he believed a second Trump term would mean a better economy and lower energy costs, Mullin laid out Trump’s policy in a catchphrase that was echoed by the audience, “Drill, baby, work”.

Both the Biden and Trump administrations have pushed to produce more oil and gas than ever before, including extractive energy projects opposed by indigenous peoples. However, Native leaders have expressed concern that Trump is more likely to further erode protections for tribal lands.

Mullin suggested that if tribal nations are truly sovereign, they should be able to conduct energy extraction without the burden of federal intervention. He said like the Lumbee fight for federal recognition, the tribes’ right to govern their own lands is falling victim to the federal bureaucracy.

“Why is tribal land treated as public land?” Mullin asked, questioning why the federal government should have any oversight over tribal nations extracting natural resources from their own lands. “You have natural resources that are pulled out of the ground just over the fence from the reservations. You have private landowners who are extremely wealthy and you have people starving on reservations,” he said, comparing some to third-world countries.

He promised Trump that he would have a deep understanding of tribal sovereignty.

That message resonated with Robert Chavis Jr., a physical education teacher and Army veteran who was at the rally and will vote for Trump. Chavis, a member of the Lumbee tribe, said tribal nations aren’t just governments, they’re businesses, and the U.S. is no different. “I feel you don’t need a politician there. We need a businessman to run the country the way it should be.”

But other Lumbee voters are not as convinced. At her art gallery a few miles away in Pembroke, Janice Locklear said Trump promised her he would recognize the Lumbee the last time he was in office and she has no reason to believe he could follow through this time. But looking wider than her community, she said what Trump did January 6, 2021represents a national threat to democracy.

“He thought he could actually be a dictator, go in there and take over. Even though he had lost the election; he knew he had lost the election. So what do you think he’s going to do this time,” she said.

Locklear said that as a black woman herself, she is confident Harris will have a deeper understanding of the unique challenges Native Americans face. “I’m sure he had to deal with the same problems as us,” Locklear said. “Discrimination, I’m sure he’s faced it.”