Saturday, November 16, 2024

POLITICO Nightly: The unexpected group that surged toward Trump

It is unclear if musk's false claims & targeted ads were considered in this analysis!

Elon Musk’s false and misleading election claims have been viewed 2 billion times on X

Navajo Trump supporters eat dinner during a meeting at Freedom House in Window Rock, Ariz. in October. | Rodrigo Abd/AP

RIGHT FLIGHT — As the final votes continue to be counted in the West, another element of Donald Trump’s infusion of color into the Republican coalition is coming into sharper focus — his surprising strength among Native Americans.

In the Great Plains, the Mountain states, across the Southwest and even in North Carolina, Trump delivered standout gains among this traditionally Democratic constituency. Kamala Harris still won many of these counties, but often with significantly diminished margins. And in a number of places, Trump managed to flip heavily Native American counties that voted for Joe Biden in 2020.

In Montana, the four counties that reported the sharpest shifts to the right had Native American majorities. In South Dakota, all nine counties with Native American majorities shifted rightward. The same trend held true in neighboring North Dakota, where Sioux County — which is 81 percent Native American — showed the biggest rightward shift of any of the state’s 53 counties, at 10 points.

Elsewhere — in states with large or small Native American populations — the story was much the same. New Mexico’s McKinley County, which is 81 percent Native American and home to members of several different tribes, shifted 14 points to the right. Minnesota’s Mahnomen County, which is 43 percent Native American, moved 7 points — the biggest shift of any county in the state.

North Carolina’s Robeson County, home to the Lumbee tribe, the largest Native American tribe east of the Mississippi River, saw even greater movement. Once reliably Democratic, the county broke hard toward Trump in 2016, then harder still in 2020 after he supported federal recognition for the tribe, a critical issue for the Lumbees. While Harris also supported federal recognition this year, Robeson saw a 9-point shift to the right over its 2020 results — the biggest red shift of any county in the state.

All of these gains came despite an awkward start to Trump’s relationship with Native Americans, which included a cringeworthy moment in his first year as president. At a 2017 White House event honoring Native American veterans — the famed Navajo code talkers — Trump joked about his derogatory “Pocahontas” nickname for Sen. Elizabeth Warren. Worse, the moment unfolded under a portrait of Andrew Jackson, who ordered the forced removal of tens of thousands of Native Americans from their ancestral lands.

The Harris campaign made a conspicuous effort to court Native Americans this year, especially in Arizona, which has the highest percentage of Native Americans of the seven battleground states. During an August rally there, Harris touted her support for tribal sovereignty and tribal self-determination.

In late October, Walz campaigned in Window Rock, Arizona (the capital of the Navajo Nation government) — accompanied by Deb Haaland, the Interior secretary who is Native American — where he praised Native American military veterans and discussed rural health care. President Joe Biden also traveled in October to the outskirts of Phoenix, to the Gila River Indian Reservation, and formally apologized for the federal government’s role in running boarding schools where thousands of Native American children faced mistreatment and forced assimilation.

Even so, Trump appears to have made robust gains this year in Arizona over his 2020 performance. In predominantly Native American Apache County, which is home to Window Rock, the Democratic advantage was nearly cut in half this year. Four years ago, Biden won it by 34 points. This year, with most of the votes counted, Harris is up by 19 — despite carrying the endorsement of Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren and other indigenous elected leaders.

It’s too early to know what the precise catalysts were that drove Trump’s elevated performance. He didn’t exactly offer a detailed agenda on many of the policy issues that affect Indian Country. Yet public safety and economic concerns appear to have rated high among many of those voters, and inflation imposed severe hardships on many Native American families — far worse than in other communities.

Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at nightly@politico.com. Or contact tonight’s author at cmahtesian@politico.com or on X (formerly known as Twitter) at @PoliticoCharlie.

What'd I Miss?

— Biden scrambles to emergency-proof U.S.-China ties before Trump takes office: President Joe Biden will have his last chance this weekend to emergency-proof the U.S.-China relationship before President-elect Donald Trump returns to office and embarks on what is expected to be a harsh reset on already frayed relations between the two nations. As he meets with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Asian Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit in Lima on Saturday, Biden is likely to seek to preserve recently restored military-to-military communications to prevent misunderstandings that could spark unintended conflict between two hostile powers.

— Centrist Dems seize opening at the DNC: Centrist Democrats are revolting. As they begin to dissect their collapse in the presidential election, some Democratic National Committee members are concluding that the party is too “woke,” too focused on identity politics and too out of touch with broad stretches of America. Those existential concerns, according to interviews with more than two dozen DNC members, are shaping the earliest stages of the race for DNC chair and, in the absence of a formal party autopsy, blame-casting among members about the causes of Vice President Kamala Harris’ defeat.

— California to rename 43 places with ‘squaw’ in the name: California officials announced today they will rename all geographic features and places in the state that previously contained the derogatory term “squaw.” The California Natural Resources Agency said it would remove the word from dozens of streets, bridges, buildings and cemeteries around the state and replace it with names that prioritize Indigenous cultures and languages.

The lame duck session could reshape major policies before year's end. Get Inside Congress delivered daily to follow the final sprint of dealmaking on defense funding, AI regulation and disaster aid. Subscribe now.

THE NEXT ADMINISTRATION

JOCKEY CLUB — The decision over who will be tapped to head Treasury has been hung up as Trump’s transition co-chair Howard Lutnick and hedge fund executive Scott Bessent compete for the president-elect’s attention, according to three people familiar with the discussions.

One major factor that’s delayed the decision is the amount of control Lutnick has exerted in determining what information flows up to the president-elect, two of the sources said. Bessent is meeting with Trump at Mar-a-Lago today, The Washington Post reported.

Bessent, the founder of the investment firm Key Square Group, had widely been viewed as the front-runner until Lutnick began to make his own case to lead Treasury, according to the people. Lutnick’s empire includes investment bank Cantor Fitzgerald as well as FMX Futures, which is a new competitor to the exchange behemoth CME Group.

But Bessent, who was little known in Washington policy circles prior to the campaign, gained prominence on the national stage after emerging as one of Trump’s top economic advisers.

COMMS GUY — Steven Cheung, who served as Donald Trump’s principal spokesperson on his 2024 campaign and also served on his 2020 and 2016 campaigns, is joining the White House as communications director , according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter. Cheung has been a near constant presence at Trump’s side and a key member of his tight-knit presidential campaign, run by Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita.

JUST POSTPONED — Chair of the House Ethics Committee Michael Guest said this morning the group has only postponed, not canceled , a meeting to discuss the panel’s report about Matt Gaetz.

Guest (R-Miss.) declined to say whether the panel is open to sharing it with the Senate Judiciary Committee, as some senators say they want to see the report as they vet him as Donald Trump’s attorney general nominee. Guest noted Ethics members need to meet first. “We’ve not met as a committee, and so at this point, there’s nothing that I’m sure I can’t comment about,” he said, noting the meeting will be rescheduled.

DEPT. OF DRILL, BABY, DRILL — President-elect Donald Trump is putting his Interior Department nominee Doug Burgum at the head of a new National Energy Council that will lead a multi-agency effort to boost U.S. energy production and eliminate regulations , a core policy plank from his campaign. The new role, which will give the North Dakota governor a seat on the National Security Council, “will oversee the path to U.S. ENERGY DOMINANCE,” Trump said in a statement, and enable the U.S. to supply its allies with energy.

The position will oversee the “drill, baby, drill’ effort and increase all types of energy, Trump said. That includes growing U.S. electricity supplies to cut consumer costs and meet the demands of the raft of new energy-hungry AI data centers.

AROUND THE WORLD

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz leads the weekly Cabinet meeting at the chancellery in Berlin on Sept. 4, 2024.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz leads a Cabinet meeting in Berlin on Sept. 4. | Markus Schreiber/AP

LONG TIME NO TALK — German Chancellor Olaf Scholz urged Russian President Vladimir Putin in a conversation today to “end” his war on Ukraine and to “withdraw troops.”

The conversation, which took place over the phone, lasted for about an hour and constituted the first direct exchange between the two leaders in nearly two years, according to German media reports.

“The Federal Chancellor urged Russia to be prepared to negotiate with Ukraine with the aim of achieving a just and lasting peace,” a German government spokesperson said in a statement, adding that Scholz had spoken to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy beforehand and was planning to do so again after the call.

Ukraine’s senior leadership was ambivalent, at best, about the call. “President (Zelenskyy) told (Scholz) that Putin would not say anything new and that talking to him would only help him get out of isolation,” a Ukrainian official close to Zelenskyy, who was granted anonymity to discuss the sensitive subject, told POLITICO.

‘CONSEQUENCES’ COMING — The EU will press Beijing for answers over reports that a China-based company is producing military drones for use in Russia’s war against Ukraine, a senior EU official said today.

“We have had reports from intelligence sources on the existence of a factory inside China producing drones which are shipped to Russia,” said the senior EU official, granted anonymity to speak on the sensitive matter.

“If we finally confirm there is a transfer of drones [from China to Russia], then that will have consequences,” added the official, who declined to spell out what those consequences could be.

Policy change is coming—be the pro who saw it first. Access POLITICO Pro’s Issue Analysis series on what the transition means for agriculture, defense, health care, tech, and more. Strengthen your strategy.

Nightly Number

$712 million

The size of a project to produce industrial-sized batteries used to store and distribute energy that has selected Kentucky as the destination for its new plant. The Shelbyville Battery Manufacturing plant will employ 1,572 workers once the project reaches full capacity.

excerpt:

Canadian Solar has a global presence in the design and production of battery energy storage systems for utility-scale applications. Kentucky’s ties to the company will only strengthen the Bluegrass State’s role in the energy sector, Beshear said.

For centuries, Kentucky coal helped power the nation. Now, the Shelbyville plant will produce batteries used across the country to help ensure a reliable flow of electricity for consumers, Beshear said.

“This is energy security for the United States,” the governor said. “It’s in our national security. And this company choosing to do it in Kentucky means we’re going to be a part of providing that security for the entire country’s infrastructure and in the grid.”

The battery factory will be the largest economic development project in Shelby County’s history and ranks as the third-largest jobs project announced during Beshear’s nearly five-year tenure as governor.

RADAR SWEEP

THIS IS A MUST READ!

ELECTRIC FEEL — In the middle of a sleepy suburb of Shanghai, surrounded by farmland, a canal and small buildings, sits a giant, hulking structure. In operation since 2010, the Xiangjiaba-Shanghai transmission link is meant to send high voltage energy around the country. And with China producing more green energy than any other country, they’re now betting big on structures like this — and their component wires — to power their electrical grid. The concept is a “bullet train for power” that can remake the grid. Xiaoying You reports on how this big bet is going, issues associated and whether it will pay off for the BBC.

Parting Image

On this date in 1991: Muscovites stand on line to buy bread in near freezing temperature in Moscow amidst a cash crunch. The Soviet Union would formally collapse less than six weeks later. | Liu Heung Shing/AP