Native American voters critical to Biden's success in Arizona
President-elect Joe Biden, the first Democrat to win Arizona in the presidential election since 1996, edged out President Trump by around 12,000 votes, according to projections by CBS News and other media organizations. With such a tight margin, every vote was critical, and Native American voters may have played a role in pushing Biden to victory in the state.
Indigenous people in Arizona comprise nearly 6% of the population, and approximately 67,000 eligible voters live in the Arizona portion of the Navajo Nation. About 58% of the three counties that overlap with the Hopi Tribe and the Navajo Nation — Apache, Coconino and Navajo — voted for Biden, according to data from the state's election results. There was also a surge in turnout in these three counties, with thousands more people voting in Apache, Coconino and Navajo Counties than in 2016.
His support was especially strong in the Navajo Nation, according to an analysis by High Country News, which showed precincts voting for Biden at rates ranging from 60% to 90%. Most precincts covering the Tohono O'odham Nation, which overlaps with Pima, Maricopa and Pinal counties, were above 90% for Biden, according to a precinct map analysis by ABC15 Arizona. Another analysis by the Associated Press noted that about 17,500 more people from Navajo and Hopi reservations in Arizona voted this year than in 2016 — turnout here reached 60,000, compared with 42, 500 in 2016, a difference of over 40%.
Native Americans voted in substantially higher numbers in Arizona despite the fact that the reservations where they live face several barriers to voting. Many Native Americans lack formal addresses, or live in extremely rural areas with limited capability to travel to polling sites. The Arizona portion of Navajo Nation encompasses 18,000 square miles, but has just 27 postal locations. Many roads on the reservation are unpaved, making it even more difficult to cast a ballot by mail at a post office that could be 100 miles away.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/native-american-voters-critical-to-bidens-success-in-arizona/ar-BB1bdxFZ?li=BBnb7Kz
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