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I am often asked: Who is winning the votes from Indian Country this presidential election season?

This is Trahant Reports.

On social media it’s an intense debate. Sen. Bernie Sanders supporters point to Iowa, Oklahoma, Michigan, Nevada, and, after this weekend, Washington, Hawaii, and Alaska, as evidence that Natives are “feeling the Bern.” But Hillary Clinton backers can look at results from Nevada and Arizona and make a case for the former Secretary of State. (Yes, you can argue Nevada either way. There is just not enough evidence for a definitive answer.)

But one thing is certain: Indian Country is voting for Democrats. In Arizona’s Apache County, for example, which is mostly Navajo, Clinton had more votes than the entire GOP field; and Sanders nearly doubled the vote tally of first-place Donald Trump.

There are distinct policy differences between the two parties at the presidential level.

Sanders has incorporated Native American issues into his stump speech, including full-funding of the Indian Health Service. Unprecedented. Clinton has a track record in Indian Country that goes back a long ways, even before she was a political figure, and her administration would build on the successes of the Obama years.

And the Republican alternative? Chaos. Imagine a government as crazy as the primaries.

We don’t know much about any of the Republican plans for Indian Country. Except these shared themes: Government is bad, Keystone XL pipeline is good, and there would be a new military emphasis on defeating Daeish in Syria and Iraq.

But what if the Republican nominee is not Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, or even John Kasich?

Oklahoma Rep. Tom Cole, who is a member of the Chickasaw Tribe, raised the possibility of a Paul Ryan candidacy last week. He said it’s far more likely that one of the three remaining presidential candidates will be nominated, but if there is no consensus, then he said Ryan would be the logical choice because he has already received millions of votes from across the country.

So the only way he could win the nomination would be in Cleveland after the first ballot, delegates are free to wheel-and-deal.

Over his career, Ryan has proposed a radical rethinking of federal programs, including those that serve American Indians and Alaska Natives. In 2014 as House Budget Chairman, Ryan published a  full review of federal programs that address poverty, including lumping the Indian Health Service in with other “federal initiatives.” As I wrote at the time, what Ryan calls a “federal initiative,” I call a treaty obligation. A Ryan presidency would likely mean substantially less federal spending.

But Cole says Indian Country will be OK.  He told Indian Country Today Media Network: “This idea that a Ryan budget means cuts in Indian programs is simply not true. We have a lot of people on both sides of the aisle who recognize the Indian country has been historically underfunded.”

Ryan also has a track record for reaching across the aisle and making a deal. The 2013 budget agreement with Washington Sen. Patty Murray provided at least some relief to the harsh budget measures found in the sequester.

I am Mark Trahant reporting.

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When someone tells you that your vote doesn’t matter, quietly say, “Montana.” Or if someone says that politicians don’t listen and that nothing will change, smile, and then say “Montana.” And, when you want proof that the Native vote works, well, there is evidence to be found in Montana.

This is Trahant Reports.

American Indian voters are registered to vote in Montana at a higher rate than any other ethnic group. And, more important, especially during presidential years, Native American voters are more likely to turnout and vote.

Montana Democrats have figured this out and acknowledge that the Native vote is the key to their success s a party, in recent elections winning five of the six statewide offices. There are eight American Indians serving in the state Legislature, a number that’s nearly equal in percentage terms to the population.

In Helena, At theMontana Democratic Party’s Mansfield-Metcalf dinner, several state officials, legislators, and party activists referenced the importance of Native people to the state’s future. The Democrat’s message in Montana is clear: Native votes matter.

Gov. Steve Bullock pointed out that the expansion of Medicaid in Montana never would have happened without the Native vote. Seventy-thousand people are now eligible for Medicaid insurance, including some 15,000 Native Americans. That’s important because Native patients with insurance have access to medical care that would not be immediately available through Indian Health Service funding alone. He also cited the success of a new water compact with the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes. He said he has appointed more Native Americans to state jobs, boards and commissions, and praised the idea of regular, government-to-government communications between tribes and the state of Montana.

But it was clear that the star was Denise Juneau. She is Mandan Hidatsa and of Blackfeet descent. She grew up in Browning. She currently is the state’s Superintendent of Public Instruction and has won two statewide offices. In that post, her initiative, Graduation Matters, has helped raise the state’s high school graduation rate from 80 percent to 86 percent.

Denise Juneau she would be the only American Indian Woman to be elected to Congress. Ever.

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Perhaps Juneau will be the first Native woman in Congress. And if that happens it’s because Native voters are being courted like never before. Just say “Montana.”

I am Mark Trahant reporting

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There is so much about this presidential election that appeals to voters’ base instincts: Ugly threats involving immigrants or Muslims; school-yard shouting matches that replaced Republican debates and, especially concerning, the threats and violence, found at Donald Trump’s campaign rallies.

But it doesn’t have to be that way.

This is Trahant Reports.

One alternative presented itself on a beautiful pre-Spring day in the northern woods of Wisconsin. Instead of enjoying that first sunny break from winter, citizens, activists and politicians, spent the day inside the Lac Courte Oreilles Bingo Hall for “You Talk, We Listen!” This was a classic exchange of ideas, democracy in action.

The event was on the Lac Courte Oreilles Ojibwa Reservation and the tribe was clearly the host. A welcome by Tribal Chairman Mic Isham, and a drum and a flag song, made it clear that that was in Indian Country. But the discussion was about the whole neighborhood: Rural Wisconsin. It was about health of lakes, water, schools, state government, and even the presidency. The day was long and punctuated by respect.

As the Rev. John Stanley put it when he had his chance to talk: “Where ever there is a venom, there is a serum. People are the remedy for the sickness.” Or as Rita Pachal said, “We need to fix our democracy first.”

What does it mean to fix democracy? For speakers at LacCourte Oreilles it was a call to action. A call to organize. And a repeated, emphatic, call to vote.

Wisconsin is a new battleground over piping Canada’s Tar Sands oil to markets. “We fought the Keystone (XL pipeline) and we won,” said Carl Whiting, co-founder of Wisconsin Safe Energy Alliance. But now the company is set to build a pipeline across Wisconsin that will carry the millions of barrels of the “dirtiest oil.” He described a farmer whose house is near the current line and his foundation rumbles from the a pipeline only a few hundred feet away. He’d like to sell out, but the company doesn’t want to spend that much money.

There is common-ground in the pipeline issue, the idea that private property rights are being trampled on as fast as the environment. The company can also use eminent domain laws that require landowners to sell a strip of their land for the pipeline.

Korey Northrup said these pipelines will have an impact on traditional activists such as tapping trees for syrup. “We shouldn’t have to worry that a pipeline will ‘rain’ oil,” she said.

Any community forum, of course, is just the beginning of a conversation. Here in Wisconsin, there were many voices missing. We need to hear from people who did not or could not make the event. We need to hear more from young people. And there needs to be more of a conversation with conservatives.

One of the great stories from American history is the feud between Thomas Jefferson and John Adams. These two men did not like each other or their politics. They were as far apart as Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump. Yet late in life, Adams wrote to Jefferson, “You and I ought not to die before we have explained ourselves to each other.”

There remains a lot of explaining required in this country.

I am Mark Trahant reporting.