2010: Empowering the Native Vote in Nevada’s 2010 Midterm Election

2010: Empowering the Native Vote in Nevada’s 2010 Midterm Election

The Problem

Lower turnout so often mars midterm elections – and with a competitive U.S. Senate election in Nevada in 2010, the growing Native vote could make a vital difference again. Would the Native vote tip the balance for Nevada in 2010 as it did for South Dakota in 2002?

The Solution

Four Directions was brought in at the request of the Intertribal Council of Nevada, the intertribal organization representing the 27 Tribes in Nevada, to run two Native GOTV efforts: a Tribal- only reservation program in which we were the sole group operating in Indian Country and a Las Vegas operation in which we partnered with America Votes.

Las Vegas Operation

Four Directions had already leased a GOTV staging area in a diverse community of Native Americans, Latinos, and African American voters that ended up being used as the GOTV headquarters. The Las Vegas operation was a canvassing operation that focused on contacting voters at their home, encouraging them to vote and if not home, leaving GOTV literature. These households were contacted as many as five times in the 10 days leading up the election.

The Results

The Four Directions program provided a strong increase in voting performance as illustrated on the next page. If the other 40 percent of the data is similar, along with precincts diluted with non-Native voters, it would mean that even outside of the efforts in Las Vegas, the program resulted in roughly 1,200 additional Native voters in the identified precincts – and likely more than 2,000 extra Native voters program-wide within the reservation-only segment.

Election results Nevada 2010

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