Democrat Sharice Davids defeated four-term Republican incumbent U.S. Rep. Kevin Yoder in Kansas on Tuesday, becoming the first Native American woman ever elected to Congress — a historic achievement centuries in the making.
Davids, a member of Wisconsin’s Ho-Chunk Nation tribe, is now likely to be one of two Native American women serving in Congress for the first time next year. Deb Haaland, a member of the Laguna Pueblo tribe running in New Mexico’s solidly Democratic First Congressional District, is expected to win her election as well. The results in New Mexico are still coming in.
Yoder, who has represented Kansas’ 3rd Congressional District since 2011, was re-elected in 2016 with 51.3% percent of the vote. But Davids was leading polls by as much as a 12-point margin in the run-up to Election Day. The historic victory for Davids, a lesbian, also makes her the first openly LGBT person to represent Kansas in Congress.
But for both Davids and Haaland, the achievement comes with a sobering reminder of how long the achievement took.
“It really is pretty amazing that it has taken this long,” says Jean Schroedel, a political science professor at Claremont Graduate University who studies Native American voting rights. “There certainly are a good number of states where the Native population is a substantial portion of the population.”
But Native Americans have long faced significant barriers to voting. They were only granted the right to vote in New Mexico in 1962, making it the last state to enfranchise Native Americans, almost 40 years after they were granted U.S. citizenship. And in several states, including North Dakota and Utah, voting rights advocates have voiced concerns about rules that have disproportionately affected access for Native Americans this year.
Davids’ victory follows several unsuccessful bids for the U.S. House by Native American women — Ada Deer ran in Wisconsin in 1992, Kalyn Free in Oklahoma in 2004, Denise Juneau in Montana in 2016.
“It is such a historic time for native women. Her winning tonight will break the glass ceiling for future generations, for future young native women and girls,” says Mellor Willie, co-founder of 7Gen Leaders, a Super PAC launched this year that aims to get Native Americans elected and supported the campaigns of both Davids and Haaland.
Davids’ victory comes during an election year that has seen record numbers of women and Native Americans running for office, according to Mark Trahant, editor of the news site Indian Country Today who has tracked Native American candidates for years.
Schroedel, the Claremont Graduate University professor, sees the election as linked to a concerted get-out-the-vote effort and growing activism on reservations, mobilized by the 2016 protests at Standing Rock over the Dakota Access Pipeline and the broader women’s march protests across the country.
“This is just part of a movement,” she says. “You have the impact of Standing Rock, but you also have the impact of women’s anger with the President.”
“This is different. This is cross-tribal,” she says. “There is a change, and I don’t think it can be changed back.”
