Native News Online Post-Election Survey Shows Trump-Harris Split, Reservation Divide

Details

By Neely Bardwell and Marlon WhiteEagle

November 15, 2024

Native Vote 2024. Native News Online released the results of a survey detailing Native American voting patterns in the 2024 presidential election.

The poll, conducted Nov. 7-13, showed Donald Trump received 51% of Native American votes in the presidential election, while Kamala Harris garnered 45% of the votes, according to the survey of 865 American Indians, Alaska Natives and Native Hawaiians. The post-election poll was one of four national surveys of Native American voters conducted during the election cycle by Native News Online in collaboration with Northwestern University Medill School of Journalism and national survey firm Qualtrics. 

The results of the most recent poll closely mirror the overall population, where Trump received 50% of the vote to Harris’s 48%, according to the New York Times as of Friday, Nov. 15. 

The findings contradict an Edison Research exit poll for NBC News on Election Day that showed 65% of Native Americans voted for Donald Trump. 

Earlier this week, the Indigenous Journalist Association (IJA) called NBC’s exit poll “highly misleading and irresponsible.” 

“American Indians only represent 1 percent of the total voters surveyed, meaning that a few hundred self-identifying respondents are being used to represent the diverse interests of millions of Indigenous people across the country. None of the exit poll locations, for example, were on tribal land,” the IJA said in a statement.

The IJA statement noted that the NBC poll contributed to widespread misinformation about Indigenous voter preferences, calling it “another example of how ill-equipped many news outlets are to cover Indigenous communities.”

RELATED: Polling in the Dark: A Call for Accurate Native Voter Representation

Traditional polling methods often struggle to capture Native American voters, according to Native News Online Editor and Publisher Levi Rickert.  Collecting data and research among Native Americans is challenging because people often self-identify as being Native even when they only have traces of Native American ancestry, Rickert added. “A common response is that they heard their great-great grandmother was an Indian princess. Frankly, we didn’t want to count that group’s votes. We wanted to ensure our respondents were either enrolled members or had direct ties to Native communities.”

The survey methodology addressed this challenge through collaborations with Northwestern and Qualtrics, which used specialized techniques to reach Native voters both on and off reservations. The polling team verified tribal affiliations and connections as part of the validation process. 

Survey Demographics, Findings

The goal of the survey was to reach a cross-section of Native American voters with responses from tribal members and descendants living both on and off reservations throughout Indian Country. The survey demographics showed: 

• 50% of the participants were female; 48% male and 2% other;
• 51% of the participants were enrolled in federally recognized tribes; 49% of the participants were descendants;
• Approximately 147 different American Indian tribes were represented by the participants;
• 31% of participants said they were Democrats, 28% marked Republican, 27% said they were Independent; the 6% rounded out others.

Key findings revealed inflation was a top concern, with 17% of survey participants listing it among their top three issues.  Native American issues ranked second at 12%. 

Native voters, like their non-Native counterparts, said high prices and the economy were issues they were concerned about as they decided who to vote for in the presidential election. 

Native Americans in the survey who voted for Trump cited inflation (21%), immigration (16%) and jobs/economy (14%) as their primary concerns. Harris supporters prioritized abortion rights (17%), Native American issues (13%), and inflation (13%). 

Native Americans On Reservations Voted Democratic

The data showed strong Democratic support among Native American voters living on or near reservations.

In separate research conducted by Native News Online after the Nov. 5 election, reporters collected election results data from precincts on or near Indian reservations, including these findings 

• The two precincts on the Red Lake Indian Reservation in northern Minnesota, 92% of voters cast their ballots for Kamala Harris. 
• On the Menominee Indian Reservation in Wisconsin, 80% voted for Harris. 
• In Apache County, Arizona, where the Navajo Nation occupies two-thirds of the population, 58% voted for Harris versus 39% for Trump.

Native Voters Made up Their Minds Early 

Regarding timing, 35% of Native American voters decided their presidential choice before President Joe Biden withdrew from the race, while 19% decided around the time of Biden’s withdrawal.  Only 7% made their decision after the Sept. 10 presidential debate between Harris and Trump.  

Survey Methodology 

Native News Online, in collaboration with the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University, engaged with Qualtrics to conduct four surveys during the 2024 presidential election cycle.  

Qualtrics, a company trusted in the polling industry, was selected for its experience in reaching hard-to-find populations. The Native New Online polling team reviewed each survey response to validate tribal connections and eliminate inconsistent or inaccurate responses.  

“We were interested in Qualtrics not only because it is a respected company in the polling field, but also because Qualtrics has experience doing social science surveys that poll people who are hard to find. One of the ways Qualtrics finds those hard-to-find people is by collaborating with other peer companies, so they can all pool their resources to get a good cross-section of the people they are looking to survey,” Professor Stephen I. Hersh, Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University, said.

In previous elections, surveys conducted by Native News Online were done internally among readers and skewed highly Democratic. The Qualtrics methodology produced only 38% of readers who read Native News Online on a regular basis.

The post-presidential election survey was the final of the four waves of polling conducted. The results of the first survey were not published because the results were to be released the week President Joe Biden withdrew from the presidential race. The second survey was conducted after the Democratic National Convention and the third survey was done after the presidential debate between Trump and Harris.

A final report will be compiled with data and information from all four surveys and released in early 2025.

Disclosure:  Native News Online’s nonpartisan election surveys and related coverage were made possible with funding support from the MacArthur Foundation, National Congress of American Indians, and Four Directions - Native Vote.