OPINION: An Arizona district with 14 tribes may not send one of its own to Congress

Seven of the nine congressional races in Arizona don't figure to be competitive .

That lends credence to the criticism that the once-every-10-years redrawing of district boundaries heavily favors one party or the other at the expense of some constituencies.

No other race relitigates the case of redistricting fairness more than the Congressional District 2 contest between incumbent Eli Crane, a hard-right Republican, and Jonathan Nez, a Democrat.

Nez is the immediate past president of the Navajo Nation and is seeking to become the first Indigenous person to serve the state in Congress.

He's also running in a sprawling district in which 14 of Arizona's 22 tribes are represented and that, until the redrawing of maps following the 2020 Census, favored Democrats.

Prescott's presence changed the district

The Independent Redistricting Commission kept intact the tribal areas of the old district (Congressional District 1) but folded in the far more conservative communities of Prescott and Prescott Valley.

Overnight, the new district swung 9 percentage points — going from Democratic-leaning to Republican-leaning .

"What (the commission) did to us was unbelievable," Native American advocate Lena Fowler, a Coconino County supervisor, told The Guardian in 2022 .

She argued that the unique relationship between Native Americans and the federal government — bound by treaties and obligations on everything from health care to education — makes congressional representation particularly critical.

Nez ruefully notes that the redrawn boundaries would not have passed muster under the "preclearance" standard in the Voting Rights Act, which required Arizona and a number of mostly Southern states with election laws that historically discriminated against race to first gain federal approval.

The U.S. Supreme Court in 2013 ruled preclearance unconstitutional .

CD 2 now has a heavy Republican advantage

Nez remains unconvinced by the redistricting commission's explanation that it updated boundaries according to "communities of interest."

"I see no connection between Navajo and Apache counties with Prescott and Prescott Valley," he said.

Traditional Democrats had historically won the district with a pledge to champion the interests of Indigenous communities and secured tribes' backing. But that changed two years ago, in no small part because of the new maps.

What was expected to be a toss-up turned in a decisive Republican win.

Crane, a Navy veteran who earned the backing of Donald Trump and hard-right conservatives such as Wendy Rodgers, clobbered three-term incumbent Tom O'Halleran by 8 percentage points.

Voter registration in CD 2 now favors the GOP by nearly 10 percentage points. The Cook Political Report rates the race as solidly Republican.

Nez knows issues most critical to tribes

To his credit, Nez is largely ignoring the redistricting grievances in his campaign and rather resting on his prosecution of Crane as a hard-right candidate who epitomizes Congress' dysfunction.

He accuses Crane as being nothing more than a firebrand who likes chaos more than compromise.

Crane, he notes, was one of a small group of Republicans who ousted Kevin McCarthy as House speaker last year over McCarthy's decision to help Democrats pass a stopgap measure to fund the government and avoid a shutdown.

Nez attempts to play up his credentials as a centrist — whose parents were Republican and who, as Navajo Nation president, had a Republican vice president — while knocking Crane for not "even living in the district." ( Crane resides in Oro Valley north of Tucson, outside of CD 2.)

He undoubtedly has a leg up on Crane on issues most critical to Native Americans, including water rights. A longstanding settlement for Navajo and Hopi water rights is still pending in Congress, as stakeholders laying claim to the Colorado River face more cuts amid a persistent drought.

And the two are on opposite sides of President Biden's decision to establish the Baaj Nwaavjo I'tah Kukveni – Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon National Monument. Nez views the accompanying ban on new uranimum mining as protection of tribes' ancestral home; Crane dismisses it as pandering to the far-left at the expense of ore production that's critical for national security.

Some of the electorate may sympathize with Nez's critique that Crane should have made himself more visible when the San Carlos reservation endured a wildfire that destroyed homes and forced evacuations, and when deadly flooding struck the Havasuapi community.

Or with his criticism that Crane conveniently uses fiscal responsibility to not secure more funding for projects in the district.

Crane also has bipartisan chops

But Nez faces headwinds, not all created by the Republican registration edge.

For all his talk of being a centrist, Nez advocates mostly the Democratic platform — more federal dollars for infrastructure, federal intervention on food and gas prices, and more regulations on home construction (to stimulate affordable housing) and the environment.

That may not win the day in the revamped district.

Crane invites knocks against him as a culture warrior, but he counters that he has bipartisan chops too.

Most notably, he co-sponsored legislation with a Democratic lawmaker to create an office within the Small Business Administration to spur entrenpreunership on reservations and another bill that would establish a reservation and water rights for the San Juan Southern Paiute Tribe, albeit it's an agreement that comes at the expense of the Navajo Nation.

Crane also favors a free market approach on growth that tends to appeal to moderates and right-leaning independents, especially in Yavapai County.

That area not only accounts for Republicans' 50,000-plus registration advantage in the district. But Yavapai County also votes at the highest percentage among Arizona's 15 counties.

Additionally, the section of Pinal County in the district has gotten redder in the last several years, as has Apache County.

Nez will be running against demographic change as much as redrawn boundaries, fair or not.

Reach Abe Kwok at . On X, formerly Twitter: .