On Monday, we talked about North Carolina and more.
Today let’s talk about the Balloon Juice efforts in support of Four Directions – a group and a cause that is near and dear to our collective Balloon Juice hearts.
Four Directions does an extraordinary job of fighting for Native American voting rights and giving voice to the Native American community.
- voter registration
- GOTV efforts
- voting rights litigation
- legislative advocacy
We supported Four Direction’s efforts in three key swing states – Arizona, Nevada and Wisconsin. And of course we helped them return to Montana with the goal of reelecting Senator Jon Tester.
Montana was a heartbreaker. It was a rough Senate year, and I can hardly believe that we lost 3 good senators: Jon Tester, Sherrod Brown, and Bob Casey.
Overall, according to the Brookings Institute, the nationwide Native vote was 57% for Harris and 39% Trump, down from Biden’s numbers in 2020. Congressional voting percentages were similar.
The gender gap is evident in the Native vote as well, with 63% of women voting for Harris vs 50% of men. Sadly, the Native vote was more likely to vote for Trump in 2024 than African-Americans, Asian Americans or Latino voters. Still, the native community was 17% more likely to vote for Harris than white voters.
Turnout is always affected by accessibility barriers – long distances to vote, threats of arrest even if the law doesn’t allow arrests while traveling to vote, subject to hostility when they go to vote, and lack of assistance with voting questions. This year was no different.
Overall, the Native vote wasn’t quite as solidly Democratic this cycle as it has been in the past. But 2024 may well be a world-wide anomaly, and our work in turning out Native voters in key swing states will pay off in 2026 and beyond.
Even so, there were brights spots!
- Montana’s 4 Native American majority counties went solidly for Tester.
- Native-majority Apache County in Arizona went for Harris over Trump by a margin of 59-40 (down from 66-33 in 2020).
- Ruben Gallego’s efforts in Indian Country paid off; he won Apache County by a larger margin that Harris at 62-35.
- Jacky Rosen (Nevada) kept her seat in a really tough year.
- Tammy Baldwin (Wisconsin) kept her seat in a really tough year.
- The only Native majority County in Wisconsin (Menominee) awarded 80% of its votes for Harris.
- In Clark County, Nevada (Las Vegas), home of the majority of the state’s Native population, Native voting participation was up over 2020.
We did good, BJ peeps. It may feel like at times like we lost everything, but we didn’t. It’s likely that our efforts in these states got us THREE Senate seats that wouldn’t have won otherwise.
None of our funds went into the pockets of highly-paid consultants. None went to television ads. It mostly went into the pockets of the Native Americans who were doing the boots on the ground voter registration and GOTV. As far as I’m concerned, that’s a win-win, because we are helping to raise the standard of living in those communities.
I am confident that our funds to Four Directions for Montana had more of an impact on Native votes than the millions of dollars the DNC put into TV ads, etc in Montana.
It’s important to remember that once someone votes in one election, it’s far more likely that they will vote in the next one.
As with everything we do, it’s about right now, and it’s also about the future!
@mistermix.bsky.social
This was very much a worthwhile effort. I know from my past political work that the combination of voter suppression and poverty kills voting on reservations and in mostly-native areas. This is the kind of fundraising that makes sense now and in the future.
Miss Bianca
Thanks for the results write-up, WG!
Baud
Thanks, WG & Four Directions
oldster
We didn’t get everything, but we got more because we fought.
WaterGirl
@Miss Bianca: These aren’t as fun as the write-ups for 2022! :-) To write or to read.
This was a rough year, and I hope we can return the favor to the Republicans in 2026.
I may feel crushed by some of the results, but I’m no less committed to our funding boots on the ground organizations that are doing great work.
We are making a difference, and that’s the name of the game. In my opinion. We can only control what we do; we can’t control the outcome.
Steve LaBonne
This is one that I contributed to and I feel very good about that. Thanks.
Baud
@oldster:
Hear hear
rikyrah
Yeah, it was rough. They all lost to muthaphuckin’ clowns.
WaterGirl
@rikyrah: Yep.
The jury is still out on what it was about, but it wasn’t about the quality of the candidates.
Jim Appleton
Thank you WG for the update, and for your incredible spirit getting important stuff done.
John S.
Thanks WG and Four Directions. This was a terrific effort, and 100% worth it.
We have a lot of tribes here in Washington, but I don’t think the Native vote gets much outreach here in this incredibly blue state.
Planetjanet
@WaterGirl: So, so true.
scav
It’s better that we — everyone — hears their voices and votes whatever the outcome, so good job.
H.E.Wolf
I am deeply grateful for these write-ups, and for the chance to appreciate what we and our GOTV partner organizations achieved, in the face of difficult headwinds.
Looking forward to 2026 and partnering again with our GOTV friends and comrades.
BlueGuitarist
Thanks so much WaterGirl for this, all your efforts, and your determination to keep pressing on.
Winter soldiering on, shoulders to the wheel…
eclare
Thank you so much for your work on this. I only donate my tiny sums through here, because I know it will have the most impact.
dc
Does Four Directions keep working and organizing in off years? I’m asking because this kind of organizing work really pays off in the long term by constant community engagement.
WaterGirl
@dc:
We have funded them in the past, as early as (the equivalent of) May 2025. So the answer is yes.
Four Directions will be one of the groups that will be coming to talk with us to talk about the way forward. We plan to start those at the end of January. So we can talk more with them about their off-cycle work then.
BlueGuitarist
With 7,313 more votes, perfectly distributed, Democrats would have a majority in the US House, winning IA-01, CO-08, and PA-07.
In CO-08 pediatrician Yadira Caraveo lost by 2,449 votes.
the “approval voting party” and Unity party (x-green) candidates, each got more than that.
WaterGirl
@BlueGuitarist: Oh so close. So many short-sighted people.
Miss Bianca
@BlueGuitarist: I could just scream.
Geminid
@BlueGuitarist: Third parties may have impacted the result in Senator Bob Casey’s race. Final results in Pennsylvania showed David McCormick leading Casey by 16, 305 votes out of amost 6.8 million votes cast. Libertarian John Thane received 89,602 votes while Green Party candidate Leila Haizou won 66,315 votes.
A Libertarian candidate got 4% in Rep. Marcy Kaptur’s northwest Ohio district and that may have enabled her narrow victory. And I think the Green Party candidate in Rep. Juan Ciscomani’s Arizona 6th CD race might have affected the outcome there.
I’m not saying this just to gripe about the Greens, but I thought it was worth noting for future reference..
I’m not going to gripe about the Libertarians because I think they are basically a Republican problem. And at the national level, this was a bad year for the Libertarians anyway.
BlueGuitarist
@Miss Bianca:
Me too.
WaterGirl
@BlueGuitarist: One thing it shows is that we weren’t crazy to think we could win – with that margin of error, our side winning was definitely a possibility.
As it turns out, it was a perfect storm of a bunch of things at the same time that added up to a loss.
BlueGuitarist
@Geminid:
The greens cost Casey the seat.
In 2016, greens cost Clinton the PA electoral vote, with the result that in 2024 only about half the people who voted Green for Attorney General voted Green for president, but the Green candidate for Senate got almost as many votes as the AG candidate, about 4x the margin by which Casey lost.
looks like in AZ-6 Democrat & Environmental attorney Kirsten Engel lost by 64 more votes than the 10k votes the green candidate got.
stinger
Thank you for the followup information, WaterGirl. Just the sort of things I was wanting to know.
BlueGuitarist
@WaterGirl:
things would be a lot worse without all the efforts on our side.
As Curtis Mayfield said, we have to
Keep on Keeping On
something fabulous
@oldster: I agree! I think this has to be our attitude going forward or it’s all just too– sad, frustrating, all the things. Thank you everyone here (especially WG!) for your good fight.
Madeleine
Four Directions is good people, smart savvy people. They work hard and I’m glad we support them, and that I support them. Thanks WaterGirl.
Mousebumples
Late to the thread, but thanks for all you do, WaterGirl.