It is perhaps belaboring the obvious to note that the United States hasn’t always given the original inhabitants of much of our territory a fair shake. That’s history, and those people are long gone now – but some members of the lesser-known native groups are still fighting for recognition. One of these is North Carolina’s Lumbee tribe, which is recognized by the state of North Carolina but not by the federal government.
At a rally in North Carolina on Saturday, former President Donald Trump promised to sign legislation granting the Lumbee federal recognition.
BREAKING: Trump just announced that he will sign legislation granting federal recognition to the Lumbee Tribe, a Native American Tribe with 55,000 members based in North Carolina
THIS IS MASSIVE!!
“We’ll take care of it right at the beginning. Biden and Obama promised remedy… pic.twitter.com/ZvECCzg0Xn
— George (@BehizyTweets) September 21, 2024
The post ends with:
“We’ll take care of it right at the beginning. Biden and Obama promised remedy that they wanted to remedy the injustice, but they never did it. They broke their promise.”
This will activate the tens of thousands of Lumbee voters in Robeson, Hoke, Cumberland, and Scotland counties in North Carolina.
Presumably, the legislation to which former President Trump refers is a reintroduced version of the Lumbee Recognition Act; both Donald Trump and Joe Biden have claimed to support the bill during their respective presidencies. Federal recognition, it should be pointed out, would entitle the Lumbee to benefits accorded to other Native tribes.
There is, of course, a political element to this move. North Carolina is a swing state, where Trump is leading Kamala Harris by 0.1 points in the current RealClearPolitics average. The Lumbee have historically voted Democratic, but that is changing. Trump’s promise of recognition may help tip the Lumbee’s potential, 55,000 votes in his direction, maybe enough to clinch this must-win state.
The Lumbee are a fairly socially conservative group and have been leaning right in recent years, so this promise, if Trump can keep it – Congress must first pass the bill – then it may have legs.
Until recent years, the Lumbees were reliably Democratic voters. But many are also socially conservative Christians, and Republican candidates running on a platform of conservatism have begun to draw their votes.
Robeson County surprised North Carolina political observers in 2016 when a majority of its voters picked for Trump and helped him win the state and its 15 Electoral College votes.
Consistency, of course, is a good thing, and if the Lumbee have a good claim to being a distinct tribe, they should be entitled to the same treatment as other distinct tribes.
See Related: Trump Speaks in North Carolina, and He’s Back on His Game
RNC Battles Election Fraud in Another State, Files Suit on NC Absentee Ballot Policy That Breaks Law
Of course, Donald Trump shouldn’t just make this a campaign promise. If he is promising this, he should follow through, especially if Lumbee votes help throw this swing state into the GOP column. He can, if he wishes, nudge Congress to pass an updated Lumbee Recognition Act, and then sign it once passed.
It’s an interesting precedent. The various Native groups in the United States have generally voted Democrat, for a variety of reasons, not least of which is due to the Democrats being rather more free with the purse strings. Even here in the Great Land, the areas of the state with high percentages of natives tend to lean Democrat; those areas also are very sparsely populated, mind you. But as with other minority votes, if Trump can tip some of their votes his way, that could make a big difference.
