found individuals living on the reservation tended to vote Republican and those off the reservation Democratic. They explained this by arguing that urban Indians have more contact with other minorities so are more likely to see the Democratic party's support of other minority rights as relevant to their lives. Almost 10 years later using NORC data from 1972 and 1976, Ritt (1979) found that American Indians were more Democratic than whites but not more so than other minorities and more independent than all other racial/ethnic groups. Ritt also found that American Indians who were female, urban and older were more likely to be Democrats, but ideology was not strongly related to party. McCool (1982) examined voting by precinct in Arizona between 1952 and 1980 and concluded that party voting varied from tribe to tribe and there was much split ticket voting. Thus American Indians' voting was affected more by issue positions than partisan loyalties. Looking at voting of American Indians in Oklahoma in the 2000s, Min and Savage (2012, 2014) found that American Indians vote Democratic and that their low levels of socio economic status, not cultural ties or identity explain their Democratic voting patterns. Clearly some of the inconsistencies in the findings were the result of time. For example, American Indians may have been more likely to be Republicans in the 1960s and 1970s than today since President Nixon was seen as supportive of American Indian policies. Many of the studies too suffer from examining just one tribe or state or were based on bivariate analyses. Thus, there is much room to improve our knowledge of American Indians' partisanship. Here we add to our understanding of American Indian party identification by using a national sample of 300 American Indians to estimate their partisan attachment and then explain variation in their attachment. Most specifically we believe that the
tribal language averaged -0.91 on the party ID scale (-3 = strong Democrat and 3 = strong Republican), the 114 who speak only a few word averaged -.31, the 50 who speak some averaged -0.26, and the 17 who are proficient averaged -0.43. This may indicate that the language measure is not measuring how one's attachment to one's heritage affects their party identification. Unfortunately we are not sure what that might be measuring. Our measure of lineage, number of grandparents who are thought to be American Indian, had a significant effect on party identification but not in the expected direction. The more American Indian grandparents an individual has, the more likely the individual is to be a Republican, not a Democrat. American Indians with one American Indian grandparent had a 0.23 probability of being a strong Democrat and 0.49 probability of being a Democrat, compared to 0.13 and 0.33 for those with four American Indian grandparents. To better understand the effects of individuals' attachment to their heritage on party identification, we simplify the party identification variable, creating a three-point scale for Democrat (coded as -1), Independent (coded as 0) and Republican (coded as 1) and estimate a multinomial logistic regression. We use Democrat as the base category since we are interested in the effects of one’s heritage on identifying with the Democratic Party. The results of this analysis are presented in Table 3. These results tend to confirm the previous results suggesting that individuals' attachment to their American Indian heritage affects their support for the Democratic Party not for parties generally. [Insert Table 3 here] None of the variables significantly distinguish Democrats from Independents, but many do distinguish Democrats from Republicans. The results for racial categorization
Collective action: “Do you think that if various Native/American Indian groups worked together politically Native/American Indians would be better off, worse off or wouldn't it make much difference?” 1 “better off,” 0 “worse off” or “wouldn't make much difference” Commonality: Native/American Indians in the United States share FEW political interests and goals: 5 “strongly agree,” 4 “somewhat agree,” 3 “neither agree nor disagree,” depends” and “don’t know,” 2 “somewhat disagree,” 1 “strongly disagree” Time lived on reservation: 1 “None,” 2 “less than 25%” 3 4 “51% to 75%,” 5 “more than 75%.” Live in Oklahoma: 1 if respondent lives in Oklahoma; 0 all others Speak tribal language: 1 “not at all,” 2 “only a few words”, 3 “more than a few words through proficient.” Grandparents with American Indiana blood: number of biological grandparents (0-4) with American Indian blood. Education: 1 “less than high school,” 2 “high school,” 3 “some college,” 4 “college” or “post-graduate” Age: age in years Female: 1 if female, 0 all others Table 3. Explaining Determinants of Party Identification- Multinomial Logit Analysis Comparison Independents Republicans American Indian only 0.55 -0.11 (0.52) (0.50) American Indian and other race 0.02 -0.88* (0.47) (0.45) Attachment 0.21 -0.33* (0.21) (0.15) Tribal identity 0.16 -1.08+ (0.55) (0.59)
Tribal identity: 1 if most important identity is respondent’s own tribe or NA, 0 all others American Indian identity: 1 if most important identity is American Indian community, 0 all others Consciousness: “If individuals who are Native/American Indian don't do well in life, it is because they are kept back because of their race; or they don't work hard enough to get ahead” 1 “Kept back because of race,” 0 “Don’t work hard enough” Discrimination: “How much discrimination have you experienced from non-Native/American Indians, if any?” 4 “a lot,” 3 “some,” 2 “not very much,” 1 “not at all” Collective action: “Do you think that if various Native/American Indian groups worked together politically Native/American Indians would be better off, worse off or wouldn't it make much difference?” 1 “better off,” 0 “worse off” or “wouldn't make much difference” Commonality: Native/American Indians in the United States share FEW political interests and goals: 5 “strongly agree,” 4 “somewhat agree,” 3 “neither agree nor disagree,” depends” and “don’t know,” 2 “somewhat disagree,” 1 “strongly disagree” Time lived on reservation: 1 “None,” 2 “less than 25%” 3 4 “51% to 75%,” 5 “more than 75%.” Live in Oklahoma: 1 if respondent lives in Oklahoma; 0 all others Speak tribal language: 1 “not at all,” 2 “only a few words”, 3 “more than a few words through proficient.” Grandparents with American Indiana blood: number of biological grandparents (0-4) with American Indian blood. Education: 1 “less than high school,” 2 “high school,” 3 “some college,” 4 “college” or “post-graduate” Age: age in years Female: 1 if female, 0 all others