SEATTLE, Washington — With fewer Native people turning out to the polls, tribal advocates meeting here for the largest inter-tribal conference are looking for ways to re-energize the vote in Indian Country.

The 2024 presidential election offered Native people dramatically different choices. Kamala Harris, the Democratic candidate, vowed to carry on the historic Indian policy achievements of then-President Joe Biden, while Donald Trump, the eventual Republican winner, had little to say about the needs of American Indians and Alaska Natives.

Despite the competing visions, Native voters did not match the turnout they showed just four years earlier, when Biden won the presidential election in 2020. But with the 2026 mid-term elections quickly approaching, advocates are hoping to change course following the longest government shutdown in U.S. history.

“Over the decades we’ve seen the impacts on local, state and federal elections that our Native power, our Native vote, can make,” Temryss Lane, who hails from the Lummi Nation, said as the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) continued its 82nd annual convention on Tuesday.

“Yet in 2024, the Native voter turnout was low, and particularly in this year, we have all collectively witnessed and experienced the impacts to Indian Country along with our other marginalized relatives,” said Lane, who serves as a vice president at Pyramid Communications said at NCAI’s meeting in Seattle, Washington, where her tribal nation is based.

According to Zara Stevens, the director of Native Vote Washington, Native people often express displeasure with all candidates, regardless of political affiliation or background. But she said staying away from the polls is not an option for those seeking to protect the trust and treaty obligations owed to tribes.

“Not voting is still a vote, so you can either make your wishes known by filling out that ballot and getting it back to your dropbox or your mailbox, however you vote, wherever you live,” Stevens, a citizen of the Fort Belknap Tribes, said at a Native vote panel hosted by NCAI.

“Or you can let somebody else decide what your future’s gonna look like,” Stevens added.

Leonard Forsman, the chair of the Suquamish Tribe, agreed. He said candidates need to be held accountable by Native voters, who in the past have been able to sway close elections in prominent races.

“So just remember these things have an impact and if people know you’re not voting, they’re not going to serve your interest, they’re not gonna support your tribe,” said Forsman, whose community is located in Washington state.

Native voters are also being actively discouraged by laws and policies in their home states. Matthew Campbell, the deputy director of the Native American Rights Fund (NARF), said he’s seen Native grandmothers turned away from the polls for using tribal identification cards in North Dakota.

“They really don’t want us to vote and the reason they don’t want us to vote is because they know that there’s power in that,” said Campbell, a citizen of the Native Village of Gambell in Alaska.

“And I’ve seen as a direct result of our voting, that we can get people in power to lift up our communities,” added Campbell, who said NARF is waiting to hear from the U.S. Supreme Court about a Native voting rights case being pursued by tribes and tribal citizens in North Dakota.

“We’re fighting with them at the Supreme Court and we hope to hear the outcome of that next week,” Campbell said of the petition in the case, known as Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians v. Howe. “And we hope and pray that the Supreme Court will take this and see what’s right here so we can fight for our people, for our communities, and for the future.”

Amid the challenges, Native people are indeed looking ahead to their future. A survey conducted by IllumiNative, a racial and social justice organization, showed that 89 percent of Native people intend to vote in the mid-term elections next year, with housing, employment, education, the economy, health care and tribal sovereignty emerging as key concerns.

“I think we’re going to see in the upcoming races, it’s going to come down to what happened during the shutdown,” Kim Teehee, a citizen of the Cherokee Nation who serves as director of government relations for her tribe, said at an event hosted by IllumiNative on Tuesday.

“And you’re gonna see the messaging take place and you’re gonna see people who are angry, too, about what happened,” added Teehee, who previously worked in the U.S. Congress. “And I hope that the people who are voting will take their position to the polls and vote their conscience and vote for what they believe is the right thing and for the right people to do.”

Crystal Echohawk, the founder of IllumiNative, said the survey indicates that the political alliances of Native people are changing, where in the past the vote would almost always overwhelmingly benefit Democratic candidates. According to the data, 51 percent of Native respondents voted for Kamala Harris last year while 33 percent voted for Donald Trump.

“There’s a movement away from the Democratic Party,” said Echohawk, a citizen of the Pawnee Nation.

Despite the shift, the survey showed that 46 percent of Native voters think Democrats in Congress will do a better job supporting issues that impact Natives. Only 27 percent thought Republicans would do a better job. Notably, 23 percent of Native voters believe neither party will help Native causes.

“What we have seen in the data — and this is for our community and also for non-Natives — is that people are feeling increasingly isolated,” said Echohawk. “People are feeling more individualistic so that’s why we’re seeing swings in votes.”

The IllumiNative survey was conducted among Cherokee people in Oklahoma, Native people in Colorado and Washington, Navajo people in Arizona and New Mexico and Native people in virtual settings. Responses were also collected online from Native participants.

Additionally, non-Natives were surveyed about their views on Native people. The responses were collected between May and September, before the U.S. government entered a shutdown on October 1 that finally ended last week after a record 44 days.

According to the data, Native people feel far more optimistic about their future (76 percent) and their tribe (71 percent) than they feel about the United States (48 percent). Echohawk said non-Native people have an even more pessimistic view.

“They are deeply unhappy,” Echohawk said of the non-Native people surveyed by Illuminative, whose operations are winding down at the end of this year.

NCAI continues its 82nd annual meeting on Wednesday with nominations and speeches for the positions of President, 1st Vice President, Treasurer and Secretary. Elections take place on Thursday at the Seattle Convention Center, with winners expected to be announced later in the day.

NCAI is seeing record turnout for the convention. The number of tribal delegates, presenters, exhibitors and visitors is expected to reach 4,000 over the entire week.