Dems' primary plan gives Native Americans more power

The 2028 race for the White House will give new political clout to a long-overlooked constituency: Native American voters.

Driving the news: New Mexico now holds an influential early spot as one of the first states to vote in the Democratic primary — on Feb. 15, 2028. That's put Native Americans, who make up about 12% of the state, in position to wield more influence in the presidential race than ever before.

• In recent Democratic primaries, New Mexico typically has voted late in the season, in June. States that held the earliest primaries had much smaller Native populations.
• Now potential presidential campaigns are scrambling to adjust to the 2028 lineup, calling Native leaders to learn about Indigenous power players and the dynamics of tribal governments, Democratic operatives tell Axios.

Zoom in: Any presidential candidate who wants to win New Mexico is "going to have to listen to tribes," warned Deb Haaland, the former U.S. interior secretary who made history in 2021 when she became the first Native American to head a cabinet agency.

• "We could be a large part in who that nominee is."
• Native leaders and their allies say that will force presidential candidates to engage closely with tribal governments and pay attention to issues such as tribal sovereignty, land and water rights, and rural infrastructure.

Several potential 2028 contenders are already taking notes.

• Isaac Dakota Casados, a New Mexico Democratic consultant and Navajo Nation member, told us his phone has been ringing off the hook as presidential campaigns-in-waiting look to learn more about Native voters.
• "They're really trying to figure out how the Native American demographic plays into this larger picture," he said. "I think they're used to speaking to Hispanic and Latino populations within their states. This is a very unique variable that's very different to them."
• Casados said Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker acknowledged to him that he's "really gotta learn" about tribal leadership, while New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker was "fascinated" by New Mexico's myriad tribal cultures in a recent conversation.
• Kalyn Free, a Choctaw Nation citizen who's on the Democratic National Committee's powerful rules and bylaws committee, also said she's been getting outreach from presidential hopefuls and their teams.

The jockeying among 2028ers to win Native American voters could help elevate new power brokers in the Indigenous community.

• Tribal governments will likely be courted for endorsements. Haaland, a member of the Laguna Pueblo, is uniquely poised to become a sought-after validator for 2028 candidates in Indian country: She's running for governor of New Mexico this year.
• Some potential 2028 contenders already appear to be wooing Haaland. She met recently with Booker and is rallying with former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg this weekend. Pritzker helped raise money for Haaland at an event in New Mexico this month.
• Haaland told us she talked with Pritzker about her efforts to investigate the troubled legacy of federal Indian boarding schools and President Trump's slashing of protections for Native American sacred sites.
• Asked if she would endorse a candidate in the 2028 primary, Haaland said: "I would wait to see."

Zoom out: New Mexico has the nation's third-largest share of people who identify as American Indian or Alaska Native, and it includes 23 federally recognized tribes.

• When New Mexico votes in the presidential primary, the race will probably have been narrowed to two or three candidates — giving the state an oversized say in helping pick the party's nominee, Democratic strategists say.

Native leaders say their community's voters don't easily map onto the party's progressive-vs.-moderate divide, and stressed that the community isn't a monolith in general elections, either.

• In the 2016 Democratic primary, Hillary Clinton won some states with significant Native populations, such as New Mexico and Arizona — but Bernie Sanders carried others, such as Alaska and Montana.
• In 2024's general election, some Native voters across the country — who polls suggested had been hit particularly hard by inflation — shifted toward Trump.

What's next: Democrats hope that by putting New Mexico early in the primary lineup, they'll learn how to better win Native Americans and reverse that trend.

• "These votes really matter," said New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D), noting that Native voters have been the margin of difference for presidential candidates in some battlegrounds. "We credit the Navajo Nation vote to getting Biden over the finish line in Arizona" in 2020.

Flashback: This year Native American leaders lobbied the Democratic National Committee to add New Mexico to the early primary calendar.

• In February, the All Pueblo Council of Governors passed a resolution that said doing so would "transform the relationship between presidential candidates and Pueblo peoples," whereas the old lineup had been "effectively silencing" Native voices.

Axios' Russell Contreras contributed reporting.