Our Decade of Political Progress

I had covered the 2016 election as a blogger — and written about the candidates for Congress, including Montana’s Denise Juneau. But that election was Donald Trump’s first wave and not the historic moment we all expected.

But the thing is, one thing always leads to another, and every loss builds a framework for the next election. That’s what happened.

The landscape was different in 2018 and it looked like a record number of Native candidates, and especially a record number of Native women, were likely to win office. Twitter was popular then and I had a following with my reporting (and I was editor of Indian Country Today at the time) and I wanted a phrase to capture that. I played with a bunch of different hashtags until I came up with “SheRepresents.” (One that didn’t work was kind of prophetic: #DisruptIndianCountry.)

SheRepresents stuck. Lots of people started using it (an ASU data scientist told me later that it was one of the most used political hashtags about Native people on Twitter). Then one day out of the blue, designer Bethany Yellowtail called and asked if she could use the phrase on a t-shirt she was planning. We also worked together to build the most accurate list of the Native women running for office. I love that. T-shirt copy editing.

This was my world, anyway. I had started a spreadsheet of Native candidates in 2012 and was able to chart the growth. So much so that in 2018 I knew for a fact that there were more Native women running than ever before.

By the time of the conference, Bethany said the shirt was in its second printing because there was so much demand.

I spoke at that conference, and quoted Denise Juneau. (Even though she lost her bid for Congress, she still made history as the first Native woman to win a statewide office.) She is a member of the Mandan Hidatsa Tribe of North Dakota and Blackfeet.

“I’m disappointed we lost,” she said. “But I don’t feel bad about it because we did everything we were supposed to. We just lost. That’s actually a really good space for me. Every time another Native woman steps up to run for any office, whether that be the state legislature, city council, U.S. Congress, it sort of paves the way. There’s sort of a pipeline, which is really awesome right now, that there’s never been a path for Native women to just really step up. I believe right now, we’re in a time and space where we see that happening. There will be a first at some point.”

There will be a first at some point. And that’s exactly what happened and what was celebrated in Scottsdale at the “Still We Rise” Native Power Building Summit 2026.

Anathea Chino, Acoma Pueblo, is one of the co-founders of Advance Native Political Leadership and is the executive director. At this year’s summit, she reflected on what’s been accomplished. She said the summit, once every two years, is their only visible activity. Most of the work is behind the scenes.

“And what we’ve been doing is state tours across the country. We do at least one to two states every single year so we can better understand the dynamics of what’s happening in the state, how Native people are being included, where they’re being excluded, what those gaps look like, where are the political power systems, what does the landscape look like so we can better understand what is happening in everyone’s communities. We are training trainers in person. We are constantly looking for new talent and really thinking about how we can reinvest in our community.

We are training people. We were just in Alaska and Montana and thinking about how we can cater our training to make sure that it is most relevant to the people in those communities. And we’re holding focus groups so we can better understand for the first time in history how our community … is relating to this moment.”

Jordan James Harvill is senior director at Advance Native Political Leadership. He is Cherokee and Choctaw. At the summit, he added data and weight to the history of success on the political front.

“We want to have an honest conversation that looks inward to celebrate the incredible heights of power we’ve achieved and who we have to be to be able to create the world that we so rightfully deserve. In 2018, we sent the largest class of Native legislators to state houses across the country and the nation’s history. We elected two Native women to the US Congress and by 2020 we decided the President of the United States and used that power to seat a Native woman atop the cabinet for the first time in history. We appointed over 80 Native leaders to position the administration the most in history. And in governor’s management across the country in California and Oregon and New Mexico and Washington, we elevated tribal affairs secretaries to cabinet level positions. We nominated and confirmed multiple Native women to the federal courts and saw the first Native women to serve as a state Supreme Court justice.
Since that time, the number of Native elected to office has risen 400 percent.

“We will send two Native women to the US Senate for the first time in history. For just three or four months, we will elect the first Native woman to govern any state in the nation’s history.

“In just 20 short years, in one generation, we changed the face of power of the 21st century. As we enter a moment, a new period of profound change. We are once again called to lead in the space between these two worlds. The institutions we know are crumbling, but what comes next is yet to be born …

“Over the past 10 years, Advance has cultivated this container of care, creativity and imagination to me in this moment. To gather the leaders and catalytic ideas that could shape the next 50, 250, or 10,000 years of our existence. That old world may be dying, but we are searching for the dream space to imagine something entirely new.”

It’s that entirely new dream that will require the same focus, energy, and work that’s been happening for the past decade. Imagine in 2036 looking back and being amazed by what was possible all along.

Judge Jennifer Jermaine, White Earth Ojibwe

Ten years ago when former Rep Arlando Teller and I were both elected to the House for the first time, we were kind of looking around saying, why isn’t there a group to help Native American candidates run for political office? And right around the same time, Anathea and Lieutenant Governor Flanagan and the rest of the co-founders, were all coming together to form Advance. When I learned about Advance and what they were trying to build, it made sense to work with them and collaborate with them. And I’ve been honored to teach cohorts and really be able to hold the door open for others to walk through.

So here in Maricopa County being elected to the judiciary, we have the opportunity to appoint our own part-time judge pro-tems. So I’ve been intentional seeking out a member of the Gila River Indian community, a member of the Pascua Yaqui community, to serve as judge pro-tems in my court, which crosses both of those tribal boundaries. So it’s about representation of the community and really making elected office and our systems reflect the communities that we serve.

What brings me joy is seeing so many people who want to get involved, who are hungry to learn how to take the first steps towards running for public office. And I wish this was available when I first started running. It would’ve made things a lot easier, but I’m happy and honored and excited to pass along what I’ve learned to others.

Mykel Johnson, Nez Perce

I was a part of the first national leadership training in Puerto Rico in San Juan, Puerto Rico a few years ago. And this is my first time actually at the Still We Rise Native Power Building Summit.

My gosh, it’s so beautiful to see the collective power that’s represented not only from political leaders, but from matriarchs, community leaders, women leaders in their families. Just everyone that’s represented here. It’s so powerful and I get emotional almost thinking about it. I think that it speaks to how we’re able to move the needle in Native communities and that a lot of times when we hear about politics, we hear about advocacy, Native people aren’t fully represented. But I think this is just a testament to we are, not as secondary characters to the story of this nation where the foundation of all that is and ever was.

And what brings you joy?
The laughter. I think laughter is such medicine here and I feel like that brings me such joy is that we collectively are all just loving up on each other and we are just like being in community. We’re meeting each other spirit to spirit and we’re rising together despite all of the things that are happening. Just all of the things with the current administration as well with Trump and all those different things. I think this is just like a pause. We’re coming up for air.

Tracie Yellowman Tso, Dine, candidate for Utah House of Representatives #69

This is my first time coming here and I think it’s great. What I really like about it is of course the people, the energy, and I feel like it’s just a really good space for everybody to really express themselves. A lot of things that we’re thinking about, maybe sometimes they don’t often get expressed in the spaces that we’re in. So I feel like this is just that space for all of us to come together and share a lot of our feelings, your ideas, especially this morning, those activities that we’re doing. It kind of makes you come back and get grounded and have these feelings that maybe some of us that are just super busy, we don’t stop to think about.

So this is really personal to me because I’m Navajo. I come from a rural community and I really feel that a lot of our voices are not heard, especially in our tribal communities. And everything that I do, I really put my thoughts, my prayer. That’s why I say it’s personal because it’s coming from my home. It’s coming from my beliefs, my culture. And then of course our children, our youth, all of those things. And I want to put something out there where all of our communities can work together to make it better for our children. I feel like I’m a very prayerful, traditional person. So one of the things is like, these are all the things that I pray about is for our kids, our community. And it’s like, okay, am I doing the steps to put my prayers into action?

So I really thought about it, thought about it, and that’s kind of where I was like, “Okay, yeah, I’m going to do this.

And what brings you joy?

From today? It has to be the people from everywhere. I think that’s really amazing. That’s really great from all different tribes, everybody’s connecting. And I feel like that’s going to make us all stronger because we’re sharing ideas and thoughts from each of us. Fantastic. Thank you.

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