Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris and her running mate Tim Walz wrapped up a whirlwind week of rallies, making history with the first campaign event opened by a tribal leader.

Speaking on Saturday, Harris singled out the tribal leaders in the massive audience at the Desert Diamond Arena in Arizona. During remarks carried live by news stations across the nation, she uttered words that aren’t heard too often by Indian Country on the presidential trail, especially not at this stage in the race.

“As president, I will tell you, I will always honor tribal sovereignty and respect tribal self-determination and fight for a future where every Native person can realize their aspirations and every Native community is a place of opportunity,” Harris, currently serving as Vice President of the United States, said to thunderous applause at the facility whose naming rights are owned by the Tohono O’odham Nation, which operates the Desert Diamond Casino right across the street.

But the promise, coming toward the the end of an hours-long rally that the campaign said drew more than 15,000 people, was just a reminder of how the Democratic ticket has energized tribes and their voters. Governor Stephen Roe Lewis of the Gila River Indian Community opened the event by acknowledging that it was taking place on tribal homelands.

“Tonight, here in Arizona, here on O’odham lands, we are bound together in support of Vice President Harris and Governor Walz because together they represent a brighter future for Arizona, a brighter future for Indian Country, and a brighter future for our country,” Lewis said to cheers.

“Let us all come together tonight, on our O’odham lands, to commit to our future,” Lewis added in his opening to the rally.

Just days earlier, Harris introduced Walz as her vice presidential pick at a raucous rally in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In their first campaign appearance together last Tuesday, the vice president vowed to “reach out to everyone” — including people in “tribal communities,” she said.

According to advocates and supporters, the pitch is working because of Harris’s work in the administration of President Joe Biden. Since January 2021, tribes and their citizens have seen a historic $45 billion in federal funds flow to their communities, not to mention the policy gains that have been made — from the historic rise of Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland as the first Native person in a presidential candidate to the record number of Native people named as federal judges.

“Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have taken the Obama legacy and they’ve supercharged it in Indian Country,” Kevin Washburn, a citizen of the Chickasaw Nation who led the Bureau of Indian Affairs during the Barack Obama era, said last Wednesday on a virtual call that was organized by Native men, following a similar one hosted by Native women and Two Spirit leaders.

But the presence of Walz, who has been serving as governor of Minnesota since January 2019, on the Democratic ticket also has been a calling card for Indian Country. That’s largely because Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan, a citizen of the White Earth Nation who is the highest-ranking Native woman in a state executive office, is in his corner.

“We codified a government-to-government tribal consultation with all of our 11 tribal nations in the state of Minnesota,” Flanagan said during the virtual event, ticking off a “small sample” of the achievements the pair have made in the last five years. “We now require every state agency, all of our commissioners, deputy commissioners, assistant commissioners, to go through tribal state relations training, including everybody who works in the office of Governor and Lieutenant Governor.”

“We funded the American Indian Scholars Program, which provides college access and tuition for Native students all across the state of Minnesota, expanded, our Minnesota Indian Teacher Training Program, established the first ever Missing and Murdered Indigenous Relatives Office in a state in the entire country, invested in food security in Indian Country, and protected and preserved Minnesota’s natural resources and partnership with our tribal nations,” Flanagan added.

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and his running mate, James David “J.D.” Vance, spent much of the past week shadowing their Democratic rivals, scheduling events in the same cities in hopes of drawing attention to their campaign. But in comparison, the GOP ticket has not said much about Indian Country and the federal government’s trust and treaty responsibilities, not even after getting a head-start on the road following the Republican National Convention in July.

Indeed, instead of elevating Indian issues during his rally in Montana, home to 12 tribal nations and a strong Native voter base, Trump once again turned to insults. Speaking in Bozeman on Friday evening, the one-term former president lashed out against a Democratic lawmaker from state more than 2,000 miles away.

“You remember Pocahontas?” Trump said of Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) who once claimed to be Native despite not having a connection to any tribe.

“I have more Indian blood in me than she has in her — and I have none,” Trump said to laughter, invoking a harmful stereotype used to denigrate Native people based on their supposed blood quantum.

Trump also attacked Sen. Jon Tester (D-Montana), who is well-known in his state for his work on the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs and on other matters of importance in Montana. In addition to disparaging the lawmaker’s weight, he tried to link the Democrat, who is running for re-election, to the “radical left Interior Secretary Deb Haaland.”

“You know who that is, don’t you?” Trump inquired, garnering little response from the crowd.

Attention will soon turn to the Democratic National Convention, where Harris and Walz will formally accept their party’s nomination. The event takes place August 19-22 in Chicago, Illinois, on the homelands of the Potawatomi, Ojibwe and Odawa peoples.

President Biden was due to accept the nomination before he dropped out of the race on July 21. In his place, he immediately endorsed Harris, who has made history as the first woman and first African American and first South Asian person to serve as Vice President.

Harris is a former U.S Senator from California, where she served as attorney general. During her tenure, she was known for opposing efforts by tribes to restore homelands in the state, an issue that was raised during the 2020 presidential race, when she unsuccessfully sought the Democratic nomination.

The Biden administration has taken a different course, restoring nearly 300,000 acres to tribal ownership in less than three years, according to Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Bryan Newland, a political appointee at the Department of the Interior. Harris is now being credited for the policy achievement.

“We are in this moment of leadership for Native people, and we are in a moment where we will deliver this election for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz,” Lt. Gov. Flanagan said on the virtual call last Wednesday.

Should Harris and Walz win the election in November, Flanagan is expected to make even more history. She would become the first Native woman to serve as a governor in the United States.

“Being able to see Peggy Flanagan have a chance to be the first Native governor in Minnesota is going to be amazing,” observed Sean Sherman, a popular chef and restauranteur in Minneapolis, the most populous city in the state.

“Peggy, if you’re still on, we’re going to throw you the biggest party with as many Native chefs as we can pull together to make the most food as possible,” Sherman, a citizen of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, said on the Native Men for Harris virtual call. “And we want to do that same thing in Washington — if we can.”