It was just over a year ago that we introduced the Daily Kos community to the Northeast Arizona Democrat’s Tribal organizing program with this diary entry titled “Navajos Will Save the World Again, by Defeating Trump”
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2019/9/10/1884623/-Navajos-Will-Save-the-World-Again-By-Defeating-Trump
The Kos community responded with remarkable generosity, and enabled us to grow from a tiny underfunded grassroots organizing program covering a small part of the Navajo Nation into a robust team of 22 paid Indigenous organizers spread out across the vast expanses of the Navajo Nation, the Hopi Tribe, San Carlos Apache Tribe, and White Mountain Apache Tribe.
Our success has multiplied, our payroll has expanded, and the tribal communities in Northeast Arizona are on the cusp of helping turn Arizona blue in a presidential election for only the 2nd time in the last 72 years! A victory in Arizona, which stands at the crossroads of being the penultimate tipping point state, could deliver the knockout blow to Donald Trump’s bid for re-election, but it won’t come easy.
The team of Native organizers has spent the past year tirelessly registering voters, signing up voters to vote by mail, persuading voters to turnout, informing voters of how and where to vote, running a strong digital campaign, airing radio ads, and providing resources for survival in the midst of a region that was hit unusually hard by COVID-19.
The fruits of their efforts were evident in the 2020 August Democratic primary, when communities with local Indigenous organizers like Teec Nos Pos, Ft. Defiance, St. Michaels, and Window Rock saw vote by mail increases of 200 percent or greater over the number who did so in the 2016 Democratic primary.
During the darkest months of the coronavirus pandemic, the tribal team ceased all political activity, but continued to work as a team by delivering medical supplies, food, water, hand sanitizer, masks and other Personal Protection Equipment (PPE) to their communities. Many on the tribal field team lost loved ones during the peak of the outbreak. ABC News captured a tiny snippet of that story, here…
https://abcnews.go.com/US/navajo-nation-reeling-coronavirus-focuses-attention-elections/story?id=72958760
The team remains resilient because each organizer knows just how critical this election is to the survival of Indigenous communities.
As we approach the home stretch, we need the resources to pay 22 hardworking organizers to finish what they’ve started. After a year of hard work interrupted by heartbreak, these organizers are determined to stay strong and defeat Donald Trump by delivering Arizona’s pivotal 11 Electoral Votes to Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, but beyond that, also to continue to build and empower a resilient tribal Democratic infrastructure that will be a force to reckon with in elections to come, up and down the ballot.
If you’d like to help keep these organizers working to turn out the tribal vote, please consider contributing to their efforts here.
https://secure.actblue.com/donate/navajoncof
We want to thank the Daily Kos community for their tremendous generosity in helping fund these incredible organizers, and we appreciate anything you can do to help the team deliver victory in November.
