CHARLES UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES Institute of International Studies Department of North American Studies Master's Thesis 2021 Bc. Radka Štroblová CHARLES UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES Institute of International Studies Department of North American Studies The Power of the Native Vote: Evaluation of the Influence of Native Americans on the Outcome of the 2020 Presidential Elections in the United States – A Case Study of Arizona Master's thesis Author: Bc. Radka Štroblová Study programme: International Area Studies Specialization: North American Studies Supervisor: Lucie Kýrová, M.A., Ph.D. Year of the defence: 2021 Declaration 1. I hereby declare that I have compiled this thesis using the listed literature and resources only. 2. I hereby declare that my thesis has not been used to gain any other academic title. 3. I fully agree to my work being used for study and scientific purposes. In Prague on Bc. Radka Štroblová May 3, 2021 References ŠTROBLOVÁ, Radka. The Power of the Native Vote: Evaluation of the Influence of Native Americans on the Outcome of the 2020 Presidential Elections in the United States – A Case Study of Arizona. Praha, 2021. 137 Master’s thesis (Mgr.). Charles University, Faculty of Social Sciences, Institute of International Studies. Department of North American Studies. Supervisor Lucie Kýrová, M.A., Ph.D. Length of the thesis: 147,030 Abstract More Americans voted in the 2020 elections than in any other in 120 years, and the majority supported the Democratic candidate - Joseph R. Biden, Jr. In 2020, Biden won 26 states, including Arizona, where he won as the first Democrat in the presidential elections since 1996. With a small margin of only 10,457 votes, every vote was essential. In Arizona, 412,256 people identify as American Indian and Alaska Native and their support for the Democratic candidate proved to be decisive in the 2020 elections. However, only little has been written about American Indians and Alaska Natives and their voting habits. Existing studies suffer from examining only one tribe or state, are old or ambiguous. American Indians and Alaska Natives are also often excluded from collecting and reporting data, and when included, the data is either inaccurate or put them in “the other” category. This work is the first to examine Native American voting in the 2020 presidential election. It aims to prove that the Native vote was one of the aspects that helped Biden win the elections since Native Americans traditionally support the Democratic candidates. To prove my thesis, I compared the results of the 2016 and 2020 elections from the precincts overlapping with tribal lands in Arizona and conducted a quantitative analysis of the assembled data. The results of the quantitative analysis find that Native Americans voted in larger numbers compared to previous elections, despite ongoing voter suppression and the Covid-19 pandemic, and that they overwhelmingly supported Joe Biden and thus contributed to his victory. Abstrakt V prezidentských volbách v roce 2020 hlasovalo nejvíce Američanů za posledních 120 let a většina z nich podpořila kandidáta Demokratické strany Josepha R. Bidena Jr. Biden zvítězil ve 26 státech včetně Arizony, kterou získal jako první demokratický kandidát v prezidentských volbách od roku 1996. O vítězi rozhodlo pouhých 10,457 hlasů. V Arizoně se 412,256 lidí identifikuje jako Indiáni (American Indian and Alaska Native) a jejich podpora demokratických kandidátů se ukázala být rozhodujícím faktorem ve volbách 2020. O Indiánech a o jejich volebních preferencích však bylo napsáno jen málo. Stávající studie často zkoumají pouze jeden kmen (tribe) či stát, jsou zastaralé nebo nejednoznačné. Indiáni jsou také často opomíjeni při sběru dat a informací. Jejich hlasování tak často spadá do kategorie „ostatní.“ Tato práce je vůbec první, která zkoumá hlasování původních Američanů v prezidentských volbách v roce 2020. Jejím cílem je dokázat, že hlasování Indiánů bylo jedním z aspektů, které pomohly Bidenovi vyhrát volby, jelikož Indiáni tradičně podporují demokratické kandidáty. Pro potvrzení své teze jsem porovnala výsledky voleb v letech 2016 a 2020 z volebních okrsků překrývajících se s kmenovými územími v Arizoně, a provedla kvantitativní analýzu nashromážděných dat. Výsledky kvantitativní analýzy potvrdily, že Indiáni, navzdory omezování volebního práva a pandemii Covid-19, hlasovali ve větším počtu ve srovnání s předchozími volbami, že v drtivé většině podpořili Joe Bidena, a tím přispěli k jeho vítězství. Keywords United States, American Indian and Alaska Native, presidential elections, Biden, Trump, voting, voter suppression, Covid-19 Klíčová slova Spojené Státy, Indiáni, prezidentské volby, Biden, Trump, hlasování, omezování volebního práva, Covid-19 Title The Power of the Native Vote: Evaluation of the Influence of Native Americans on the Outcome of the 2020 Presidential Elections in the United States – A Case Study of Arizona. Název práce Význam Indiánského hlasování: Hodnocení vlivu Indiánů na výsledek prezidentských voleb ve Spojených státech v roce 2020 – případová studie Arizona. Acknowledgement I would like to express my gratitude to my supervisor Lucie Kýrová, M.A., Ph.D., not only for her assistance throughout the process of writing this thesis and for her constructive criticism but also for being there for me even in late night hours when I had panic attacks. I would also like to thank Mgr. Jiří Pondělíček for the consultations regarding the analytical part of my thesis, and my friends Honza Stárek, Kuba Štorek, and Eimear de Brún for helping me with formatting and translations. Finally, I would like to thank my family and my boyfriend Jiří for their love and support throughout my studies and my friend Honza Denemark for making the online semesters bearable. Thank you. Obsah INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................................................................ 2 LITERATURE REVIEW ......................................................................................................................................................... 3 METHODOLOGY ................................................................................................................................................................. 7 TERMS DEFINITION .......................................................................................................................................................... 10 OVERVIEW OF ARIZONA TRIBES ....................................................................................................................................... 11 1. HISTORICAL CONTEXT OF NATIVE VOTING IN THE UNITED STATES AND ARIZONA .............. 20 1.1 LEGAL STANDING............................................................................................................................................. 20 1.2 CITIZENSHIP ..................................................................................................................................................... 23 1.3 ENFRANCHISEMENT .......................................................................................................................................... 25 1.4 MODERN VOTING OBSTACLES.......................................................................................................................... 28 1.5 THE ROLE OF NON-GOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS, ACTIVISTS, AND VOLUNTEERS IN THE 2020 ELECTIONS .. ........................................................................................................................................................................ 35 2. THE PATH TOWARD BIDEN’S VICTORY ...................................................................................................... 40 2.1 THE PANDEMIC ................................................................................................................................................ 42 2.2 DONALD TRUMP AND NATIVE AMERICANS ...................................................................................................... 45 3. THE NATIVE VOTE IN THE 2016 AND 2020 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS ............................................ 54 3.1 POPULATION OF AMERICAN INDIANS AND ALASKA NATIVES IN THE UNITED STATES ....................................... 56 3.2 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS 2016 AND 2020 ....................................................................................................... 58 3.3 ELECTION RESULTS IN COUNTIES WITH SIGNIFICANT AMERICAN INDIAN AND ALASKA NATIVE POPULATION .. 62 1. Apache County....................................................................................................................................................... 64 2. Coconino County ................................................................................................................................................... 71 3. Gila County ........................................................................................................................................................... 76 4. Graham County ..................................................................................................................................................... 80 5. La Paz County ...................................................................................................................................................... 83 6. Maricopa County ..................................................................................................................................................