The 1994 Navajo presidential election

Navajo tribal elections have captured considerable media attention in recent years. There are several reasons for this. First, the Navajos occupy the largest reservation in the United States, spanning three states and more than sixteen million acres. Second, the tribal population exceeds 220,000 persons, and nearly one-third of Native Americans residing on a reservation live on the Navajo Reservation.1 Third, tribal government has played an increasingly important role in state and national politics. Fourth, the Navajos have provided leadership in legal cases seeking to enhance tribal sovereignty and cultural preservation, including tax and religious freedom cases. Thus, Navajo tribal leaders emerge as national Native American leaders.

Despite the importance of tribal politics, the literature on Native American electoral behavior is limited and generally concerns participation in state and federal elections.2 Likewise, the few studies of Navajo voting patterns have primarily focused on national elections.3 Several other works have described the history and functioning of the Navajo tribal government and its relations with the federal government.4 This paper describes the 1994 Navajo presidential race and voters' views of the election. We present the results of an election-day exit poll that contributes to an understanding of contemporary Navajo political processes.

While exit polls are common in American elections today, this is the first report of an exit poll conducted with reference to a Navajo presidential election and, so far as we are aware, the first specifically designed for any tribal contest.5 Through the poll and an examination of the campaign by local media and other sources, we chronicle the presidential campaign and analyze voter attitudes and choices. We conclude with a discussion of the significance of the election.

The 1994 Navajo election was an especially important one for the Navajo Nation and the Navajo people. Two major contests dominated: a referendum on the legalization of gaming and the presidency of the Navajo Nation. The former contest involved a major policy decision that had been referred to the people after a struggle between the incumbent president, Peterson Zah, and the Tribal Council. The latter involved, of course, a vote for the chief executive of the Navajo Nation. In the quarter century prior to the 1994 election, only two men had been elected chief executive of the Navajo Nation,...