Democrats talk a lot about helping minorities, but it’s been clear for decades that their words are hollow – they care about minority votes but not the voters themselves or their community. Democrats continue to shamelessly pander to these constituencies while only delivering harmful results, so blacks, Latinos, and even Native Americans are now voting Republican – and for Trump – in record numbers.
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According to exit polls, 65 percent of Native Americans voted for Trump in 2024, a higher percentage than whites, blacks, Hispanics/Latinos, or Asians, and Robeson County, North Carolina, home of the Lumbee tribe, is a perfect example of this trend. With 60,000 members, the Lumbee are the largest Native American tribe on the East Coast. Robeson County voted for the Democrat in presidential elections until 1972, when they voted for Nixon, then voted for the Democrat again until 2016 when they voted for Donald Trump by a small margin – 50.82 percent. In 2020 Trump carried the county with 57 percent of the vote, and in 2024 that percentage increased to 63.4 percent.
Native Americans, and Lumbees, are voting Republican for many of the same reasons other minorities are moving away from the Democrat party, but they have a few unique reasons, too, related to tribal sovereignty and the wealth-smothering regulations of the federal bureaucratic state, which they’re disproportionately affected by.
So, why are they voting for that bigoted racist, Donald Trump?
“It’s the economy, stupid” resonates more with Native Americans than any other minority group. Bidenomics has exacerbated the already bad economic situation in Native American communities (whether they’re on a reservation or not). Overall, more than 25% of Native Americans live below the poverty level, and Native American communities have significantly higher unemployment rates than the national average. Add 9 percent inflation to that, and the struggle to survive seems insurmountable.
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And where does a chunk of that money go? To feed, clothe, house, and transport illegal aliens, while Native Americans continue to suffer and those illegal aliens become competition for scarce jobs.
That is a big issue for members of the Lumbee tribe. Robeson County is located along I-95, along the South Carolina border. NAFTA decimated the county and region’s economy as manufacturing plants (mainly textiles) left the country; according to the local newspaper, Robeson County was among the hardest hit in the nation. Although the Lumbee Nation is headquartered in Robeson, its members are spread across a four-county area including Scotland, Hoke, and Cumberland counties, which were also hit hard by manufacturing job losses.
In addition, Democrat-controlled federal bureaucracies have ignored tribal sovereignty and served as roadblocks to tribes desiring to improve their economic status by utilizing industries Democrats don’t like – such as oil/gas production, mining, short-term lending, and even alcohol distilling.
According to a 2014 study by Property and Environment Research Center (PERC), about 20 percent of the country’s oil and gas reserves and 30 percent of its coal reserves are on tribal lands, but “about 86% of Indigenous land with energy and mineral resource potential remain undeveloped and just 3% of domestic oil production comes from tribal land.”
Citing environmental and public health concerns for tribal citizens, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Interior routinely deny tribes the ability to develop those lands or drill or mine. That argument doesn’t hold water with tribal leaders. Conrad Stewart, director of energy and water for the Crow Nation of Montana, told Fox News Digital:
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“What I don’t understand is why they bring in foreign oil and gas resources from someplace else that has regulation that we would not stand for here in the United States. Then, they turn around and point fingers at the Native Americans and they say, ‘your resources are too dirty.’”
The progressives do this because if Native Americans can be fully economically self-sufficient by exploiting the natural resources on their lands, they won’t have to ask permission from federal agencies every time they turn around. The Crow Nation would be especially rich if they could fully engage in coal production:
The Crow Nation’s coal and resource assets are worth an estimated $27 billion, likely making it among the largest coal owners worldwide, according to PERC. Still, the tribe’s unemployment rate is far higher than the national average and its annual return on coal is less than 1%.
Federal recognition has helped the members of many tribes across the country, but the Lumbee tribe has been denied full recognition for years. They’ve been partially recognized since the 1950s but larger tribes have fought against the inclusion of the Lumbees and other tribes as part of a battle for scarce resources. But when President-elect Trump held a rally in Wilmington, NC a few months ago he pledged to sign legislation granting the tribe full recognition, saying:
“[T]oday I’m officially announcing that, if I am elected in November, I will sign legislation granting the great Lumbee Tribe federal recognition that it deserves.”
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Given the dire economic situation in southeastern North Carolina, that’s a big deal for Lumbees, as North Carolina Rep. Jarrod Lowery (R-Lumberton) explained to Carolina Journal:
“He understands that ending the nearly 70-year termination policy that Congress put on the Lumbee Tribe will finally conclude the 130-year journey for justice that has been sought by the Lumbee people. Full federal recognition is about fairness and increased economic opportunities that will be a huge economic impact for southeastern North Carolina.”
About a month later, Bill Clinton met with Lumbee Tribal Chairman John Lowery, then Kamala Harris called Lowery to announce the Democrat ticket’s support for federal recognition, likely through the Lumbee Fairness Act, introduced by Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) in 2023:
The bill extends federal recognition to the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina and makes its citizens eligible for the services and benefits provided to other federally recognized tribes.
“The legislation will undo the injustice of the Lumbee Act, which President Dwight Eisenhower signed into law in 1956,” according to a statement released to the Robesonian on Friday.
With the first legislation, the United States Congress simultaneously acknowledged the Lumbee as an American Indian Nation and denied the Lumbee services and benefits based on their Indian status.
After the meeting, Lowery expressed gratitude for both parties’ support but said that the Lumbee people “can’t be seen as a pawn on the road to the White House.”
Despite the great results for Republicans, and even though the RNC has had a community center in Lumberton since 2022 (one of the few community centers not closed by failed former RNC chair Ronna McDaniel), Robeson County still had a much lower turnout than the rest of North Carolina in the 2024 election.
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Lots of eyes were on Robeson County for this election. Takeaways:
– Support for Trump increased.
– Turnout was low. Very low.
– Lumbees are tired of being political pawns. #ncpol https://t.co/6TpUovoko1— sarahnagem (@sarahnagem_) November 6, 2024
If Republicans want to hold this territory and build upon these gains, they must come through for Native Americans in Congress and also in the local community.
