Thread by @benwikler

On #IndigenousPeoplesDay, we celebrate and honor the history, resilience, and culture of indigenous peoples across our country and in Wisconsin. We also uplift the Native vote—which played a key role in putting President Biden in the White House. 1/

Native Americans make up 1.5% of WI’s voting population. Biden won by just 20,682 votes—a 0.6% margin of victory. A rigorous statewide analysis by the Oneida Nation estimated that 82% of Wisconsin’s Native people voted for Joe Biden.

Menominee County—home of the Menominee Nation—perfectly illustrates the point. It was the state’s most-Democratic county: 82% of voters went for Biden-Harris. Per the census, 82% of the county is Native. madison.com/ct/opinion/col…

In all of WI, Menominee wasn’t just the county with the biggest vote share for Dems—it also had the largest swing of the voting population and the largest jump in turnout. This was due to the extraordinary work by Menikanaehkem, @WisConVoices, the Biden campaign, and many others.

How did Republicans respond? They filed a lawsuit to stop the certification of votes in just three counties: Dane (home of Madison), Milwaukee—and Menominee. They wanted to suppress Native votes to flip the election to Trump. (They failed.)
wbay.com/2020/11/14/men…

And it’s not just in Wisconsin. In Arizona, “Native American votes helped secure Biden’s win.”
apnews.com/article/electi…

“Voter turnout on swaths of tribal land in Arizona surged compared with the 2016 presidential election, helping Joe Biden to victory in a state that hadn’t supported a Democratic in a White House contest since 1996.”

Just like in Wisconsin, Arizona Republicans have been hard at work restricting fundamental voter freedoms. Outrageously, the Supreme Court is letting them do it.
motherjones.com/politics/2021/…

Republicans know that the Native vote is powerful. So they’re doing everything they can to suppress it—introducing legislation to make voting much more difficult for people often excluded from our democracy, including and especially Indigenous voters.

American Indians face systemic inequalities that have been exacerbated by the pandemic. Today we resolve to keep working with tribal nations to lift *everyone* up and honor their sovereignty. And we celebrate the incredible work of tribal nations to protect democracy for us all.