What’s the impact of Donald Trump on the Native American candidates for Congress?
This is Trahant Reports.
One answer to that question can be found in Arizona’s 2nd Congressional District. Victoria Steele is no longer running against incumbent Representative Martha McSally. Now she’s running against the Trump/McSally agenda.
Steele says her opponent has two options: She can speak out and renounce Trump’s statements about women, Mexicans, immigrants, Muslims. Or she can nothing in which case, Steele says, her silence speaks volumes.
Trump could be a significant problem in Arizona’s 2nd Congressional District. There are some 528,000 eligible voters in the district and of that number, more than 113,00 are Latino. That’s about 1 out of five voters. And that number could grow. Significantly. According to Pew Research Hispanic Trends report nearly 58 percent of the Latino electorate is eligible to vote. There already is data to suggest that already more Latinos are registering to vote because of the fear of a Trump presidency.
But the extraordinary thing about Trump is that he could also inspire other voters to register and turn out against him. Trump has a range of controversial statements from his call to ban all immigration by Muslims to how he describes women.
One recent Gallup poll shows that seven-out-ten women have an unfavorable opinion of Trump.
There are other Native American candidates impacted by Trump.
Joe Pakootas in Washington state is running in the 5th district against Cathy McMorris Rodgers. He, too, has a growing Latino population in his district and his opponent is trying to walk that fine line as a Republican. She told the Spokane Spokesman-Review that she would like to question Trump about some of the statements he has made about women in the past.
The numbers are interesting for the Native American candidates running as Republicans. In Oklahoma, Incumbent Representatives Tom Cole and MaryWayne Mullin are running in districts that are increasingly Latino. Cole’s district now shows 6 percent Latino voters and 9 percent of the district’s population. Cole told The Daily Oklahoman last year that Trump’s problem is “he has very high negative ratings, both among Republicans and more importantly among the general electorate as a whole.”
And Arizona’s 1st Congressional District has almost as many Latino voters as Native American voters, 17 percent to 22 percent. And that’s likely to be an added factor in the November election. Bad news for any Republican, including Shawn Redd or Carlyle Begay.
It will be interesting to see if, and how, the Native American candidates running as Republicans defend or even champion Donald Trump.
I am Mark Trahant reporting.
I am not a fan of Trump, but my point of view he is a much better alternative to Sanders, and most definitely Clinton! Trump is a business man, he knows how to create and keep jobs. We don’t need a politician, and especially one that will “continue Obama’s legacy”. What legacy? I have been in construction for 35 years, and for the last 8 years have bounced form small project to small project since Obama and the politicians shut the Government down the first time. And I won’t even go into Clinton wanting to shut down the coal miners – AKA; destroy jobs issues. Obama has destroyed this country, holding the doors open for as many and whoever wants to come in. Trump has stated he isn’t going to close the borders in whole, but to bring them in legally. Is that bad? 20 years ago, it was not only socially acceptable, but it was expected!
As for Trumps comments about women, maybe we should look back to the Clinton’s. Bill molested, violated and borderline raped women while in office, and with the help of his position and his wife, destroyed these woman’s lives… Another issue we should be looking at is, whether right or wrong, there are many countries around the world that women are not upheld in leadership positions. If Clinton is elected in, it will put the United States in a lower position in these countries because of this. But Hillary won’t mention this part, just bash the US for woman discrimination and woman pay, but the country that has contributed to the Clinton’s efforts for years is Saudi Arabia… Hillary will not talk bad against them, for obvious reasons.
In my humble opinion is, if Trump is bad for the United States, Clinton will be disastrous with her “Keep Obama’s ‘legacy’ intact” policy.
I get what you’re saying.
Since when did entering a country, any country, “legally”, become a bad thing?
There are LOTS of U.S. citizens of Mexican origin who support ‘legal’ immigration. Mainstream media doesn’t mention them. Nor does it mention that they support Trump.
The issue before the nation isn’t about what someone said about someone else. The real issue is the blatant disregard for THE LAW of the land, the U.S. Constitution, that’s been going on FAR TOO LONG by ALL levels of government, even the local water district. Fighting amongst ourselves, and warring with other nations, is NOT going to make anything better for anyone.
The country’s in a real crisis with government overreach, especially federal government overreach. They haven’t stopped grabbing land that doesn’t belong to them, nor taking other people’s money, etc. Apparently they’re under the assumption that everything of value is theirs, and theirs for the taking. I think out of all the candidates for prez, Trump is most likely to be a respecter of other people’s efforts, just because of the mere fact that he’s in business and knows the value of working for what you want/have. If Trump makes a snide remark at a female newswoman it doesn’t make him incapable of running a country, it makes him human … she, and plenty of others, have made snide remarks about him, on national television, so if he snaps back, he’s out of line, and all the others are not? Let’s stop with the duplicity/hypocrisy.
My suggestion for ALL candidates, is to not make enemies of anyone, not demonize anyone. Stick to the issues, the facts. The country is falling apart, and instead of wasting time and energy pointing fingers at others, it’s time we started DOING what needs to be done to co-create a better world for everyone.
People are naturally attracted to positive energy.