Trump won over voters from the largest Native American tribe in North Carolina. How?

Editor's note: This story has been updated to reflect that the Harris Campaign opened an office in Robeson County after interviews for this story were completed.

For years, the Native American Lumbee vote was a Democratic stronghold in North Carolina, but things are changing.

Robeson County, a rural majority minority county in the Southern battleground state, is home to the largest Native American tribe east of the Mississippi – the Lumbee – who account for about 42% of the county population. For many years leaning toward a blue vote was considered a part of their culture.

But in 2016 and in 2020, Robeson County voted for Donald Trump.

The shift is notable because “Native voters, by and large, are very Democratic, very progressive voters,” said Jordan James Harvill, a member of the Cherokee nation descendant of the Choctaw nation and national program director for Advance Native Political Leadership.

That’s reflected in the voter registration records: The county’s largest voter bloc among both Native American voters and all registered voters is Democratic. But Robeson County’s shift from voting blue to red is not a national outlier.

The American Communities Project, which breaks down counties by census data and categorizes Robeson as Native American Land (a category that includes counties with large Native American populations), found that “President Donald Trump won these counties by about seven percentage points in 2020, flipping Barack Obama's three-point win in 2012."

Earning the Native American vote, although not a homogenous bloc, could tip the scales of some close races. And if Vice President Kamala Harris, now the Democratic presidential nominee, wants to flip this county back to blue, Harvill said, she needs their votes.

“I think that overwhelmingly Native communities are going to be still a very decisive voting bloc in this election, if not decide the election entirely in places like Arizona and places like North Carolina,” Harvill said.

The puzzle of why this once solid blue community has recently supported Trump at the polls is a complex one, but there are hints in the campaign presence from Republicans, an emphasis on traditional Christian values, and the small-town community feel that values connection over political affiliation.

Rhonda Dial, 55, has lived in Robeson County her entire life, and ever since she could vote, she was a registered Democrat. She recounted what her grandmother told her as a child: “We vote Democrat because it’s the party that cares for the poor.”

That is, until this year, when she switched her registration to unaffiliated.

She changed her affiliation with her husband, Anthony Dial, 55, to reflect her voting record: casting a ballot for who she has the best connection within the community, regardless of party affiliation.

The Dials − who met in high school and now have three children and eight grandchildren − voted for Trump in 2016, plan to vote for him this November and say the Republican Party is only building momentum in their community.

Robeson County also has low voter turnout coming in at 19% in the 2024 North Carolina presidential primary, about 5 percentage points less than the statewide voter turnout.

Because of the county’s diverse makeup and low turnout, Debra Cleaver, founder and CEO of VoteAmerica, said it’s difficult to draw conclusions about the change in overall beliefs of the Lumbee people or the county. Instead, recent voting patterns may show a change in who is turning out to vote.

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Connection over party affiliation

Ever since she was young, Rhonda Dial has been involved in politics. She grew up in a closely bonded community where her father was the tribal chairman for two terms and where she was expected to work at the voting polls and go door-knocking.

Her focus has always been on building trust and political involvement, not necessarily party loyalty.

She has voted for Democratic candidates and Republican candidates, and although her political choices may be nuanced, sometimes splitting her ticket, she’s sure of one thing: at the end of the day, her loyalty lies in her community connections, not in the letter next to a candidates’ name.

To paint the picture, Rhonda Dial pointed to Robeson County’s history of political representation.

She first remembers voting for North Carolina state Rep. Charles Graham, a Lumbee Democrat who served from 2011 to 2023. She trusted Graham, and so he earned her vote, which just happened to be Democratic.

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Before Graham, was North Carolina state Rep. Ronnie Sutton, also a Lumbee Democrat who served from 1993 to 2011, whom Rhonda Dial called ‘Mr. Ronnie.’

“Him and my dad were close,” Rhonda Dial said. “I grew up knowing Mr. Ronnie, so we really trusted him. So, he was Democrat, so hey, whatever Mr. Ronnie did, it was good because we trusted him.”

Flash forward and now the county is represented by three Republicans, Sen. Danny Britt, Rep. Jarrod Lowery and Rep. Brenden Jones. The Dials spoke fondly of their representatives, especially of Lowery, who is the brother of Lumbee tribal chairman John Lowery.

Those are the community politicians the Dials trust these days.

James Hunt, 79, a Democratic businessman, veteran and Lumbee member, said the Robeson County Republicans in leadership have created strong friendships and trust in the community.

Sometimes you need a favor, or help solving a problem in your community, and so you call your representative for help, he said, and it doesn’t matter so much about their party affiliation if they get the work done.

“So what do you do when it’s time to vote?” Hunt said. “You have a tendency to remember things like that. And over the past 20 years, that has been a gradual process.”

In other words, state representation has shifted Republican in recent years, creating trust in the party and affecting voting up and down the ballot.

Christian values

Along with a value in community connection, some Lumbee also feel left behind by the Democratic Party, mostly blaming "overly liberal" policies for their departure.

Lowery said he gets calls from constituents often echoing that sentiment.

“A lot of the Lumbee would tell you today that the Democratic Party has left them,” Lowery said. “You know, they’re no longer talking about issues that’s important to them.”

Issues like access to health care, an out-of-control opioid epidemic, availability of affordable housing, high gas prices, and a lack of full federal recognition of the Lumbee Tribe contribute to this malaise, Lowery said. Instead, they see the Democratic Party talking about abortion and the LGBTQ+ community, which tend to feel out of touch and out of line with community values, Lowery said.

For Gerald Goolsby, a 65-year-old Lumbee member and Tribal Council representative for District 2, Christianity is a huge part of his life and his decision-making process when voting.

Growing up, Goolsby knew the tradition was to vote Democratic in his community, but once he looked past tradition and evaluated how his stances aligned with the parties’ stances, he said he had to vote Republican. For example, he said, he couldn’t stand behind the Democratic Party’s stance on abortion or LGBTQ+ issues because of his Christian beliefs.

Christianity is a core principle for Lumbee member Hunt too, but when he heads to the ballot box, he votes blue.

Hunt says religion has been the biggest factor in his neighbors switching parties. Churches in the area don’t make explicit political statements, he said, but they comment on politicized topics like abortion and the LGBTQ+ community.

On-the-ground investments from the Trumps

The Trump family has been putting boots on the ground in Robeson County for several years now, often during times of need.

Trump's daughter-in-law Lara Trump, now the Republican National Committee's co-chair, visited the county in 2016 right after Hurricane Matthew hit. Cara Pearson, chair of Robeson County’s Democratic Party, said the visit heavily influenced voters’ perception of the Democratic Party. People saw the Republicans and wondered where the Democrats were, and they took that to the polls.

Then, in 2018, Ivanka Trump visited Lumberton to volunteer after Hurricane Florence hit.

In 2020, Donald Trump Jr. and the former president visited the county and publicly expressed support for federal recognition of the Lumbee, who currently hold only state recognition, meaning they’re left out of federal resources that other tribes can access.

The Trump campaign’s interest in Robeson County could be the result of a realization that they could not win on the white vote alone, Harvill said.

“So they have to start thinking about how they capture new coalitions of voters,” Harvill said. “And that starts in the Latino community, but it expands into the Native community."

Hunt, a Democrat, said Trump showed his skills of energizing a crowd but failed to address important issues.

“He handles a crowd well, you gotta give it to him, but it’s in my opinion mostly an act,” Hunt said. “He's performing and he’s getting results.”

In addition to the Trump family's presence in the community, the Republican National Committee created a community center in the heart of Pembroke, the home of the Lumbee headquarters.

Some Lumbee Democrats say the community center hasn’t done much for the Robeson people despite its presence.

The Trump visits may have also reached conservative voters in the area, who before 2016 found little Republican representation in the state.

Unlike registered Black and Native American voters in Robeson, who lean Democratic, white voters in the county, who account for about 20,000 registrations, are pretty evenly split between the Democratic and Republican parties.

Ronnie Lamb, 53, has lived in Robeson County his whole life, and he cuts hair with his brother at Lumberton Barber Shop, where the walls are decorated with taxidermy, the show "Duck Dynasty" plays in the background and clients wear an American flag barber cape.

Lamb is a registered unaffiliated voter, but conservatism has always been at his core.

Though his views have largely stayed the same over the years, the change in his home county has been incredible, he said.

“Twenty years ago, that would have been a death sentence,” Lamb said. “If you put an ‘R’ beside your name, you was gon’ get no votes.”

Harvill said he believes Trump activated conservative voters and in turn discouraged Democratic voters.

“Democratic voters become less excited about voting over time,” Harvill said. “They’ll stop seeing it as a mechanism for change, because cycle after cycle, Republicans are starting to win these races.”

Can Democrats win the county back in 2024?

With two Republican wins under Robeson County’s belt, all eyes are on whether the county will remain red or flip back to its blue roots.

For many, Harris’ replacement of President Joe Biden has offered a sense of excitement and hope, but she still has a lot of work to do to earn the Native vote, Harvill said.

“What Kamala said when she announced her formal campaign for president after the president stepped down was that she wanted to earn the vote, and we genuinely believe that she has a lot of earning to do,” Harvill said.

The Harris campaign has an open office in Robeson County with a full-time organizer on the ground, adding to their list of over 25 spots in the state.

She needs to develop a platform that speaks to Native American-specific issues like mental health treatment, higher education support, protection against violence and workforce development, Harvill said.

If she can do that, coupled with an on-the-ground presence, “I think that this is anyone’s game,” Harvill said.

Sarah Gleason is a 2024 election reporting fellow in North Carolina. She is @sarahgreporting on X, formerly Twitter, and can be contacted at sgleason@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Why Lumbee in NC are supporting Donald Trump