Key facts
- Deb Haaland, Laguna Pueblo and former interior secretary, won the New Mexico governorship.
- Peggy Flanagan, White Earth Ojibwe and Minnesota lieutenant governor, won a US Senate seat.
- Crystalyne Curley became the first woman elected to lead the Navajo Nation.
- Tina Abrams became the first woman leader in the modern history of the Seneca Nation.
- At least 180 of 363 Indigenous candidates won their races, per Advance Native Political Leadership and ICT.
Voters elected the first Native American woman governor, senator and leaders of two tribal nations in the November midterms, with at least 75 Native women or non-binary and Two Spirit candidates winning races nationwide, according to Advance Native Political Leadership and the news site ICT.
Deb Haaland, a citizen of Laguna Pueblo and Joe Biden's former interior secretary, will lead New Mexico. Peggy Flanagan, a member of the White Earth band of Ojibwe and Minnesota's lieutenant governor, will represent her state in the US Senate. Crystalyne Curley will become the first woman to lead the Navajo Nation, and Tina Abrams will lead the Seneca Nation of Indians in western New York, the first woman leader in the modern history of the state's largest tribe.
Mary Peltola, who is Yup'ik, could join Flanagan as another first Native woman in the US Senate pending the results of her still undecided race in Alaska.
"This is a seismic shift that is happening in our communities," Jordan James Harvill, a citizen of the Cherokee Nation and strategist with Advance Native Political Leadership, told the Associated Press.
A record-setting 363 Indigenous candidates ran for office in local, state and federal elections, with at least 180 winning their races, the report said. Among them was Claire Valdez, a citizen of Ysleta del Sur Pueblo and a Democrat from New York, who will join Sharice Davids in the US House of Representatives.
The Senate has seen four Native men represent their states in its 237-year history, but Flanagan will be the first Native woman to join the chamber in January. At her victory party in St Paul, Minnesota, Flanagan told supporters: "I could not run for the US Senate without Native women."
Haaland told the Guardian she sometimes forgets she would be the first Native woman, adding: "I just hope that I can help folks to see that hard work still means something." Abrams said in a statement: "Tonight, at long last, a woman will now lead our Nation as president."