05/16/2026
Thank you for this write up, AZ Native Democrats!
Our Congressman Doesn’t Live Here — And His Votes Show It
A close look at Eli Crane’s voting record — and what it means for the tribal and rural communities he was elected to represent.
There’s a moment in every election cycle when the gap between what a politician says and what they actually do becomes impossible to ignore. For residents of Arizona’s 2nd Congressional District — one of the most rural, most Native, most geographically vast districts in the country — that moment is now.
Rep. Eli Crane has represented CD-2 since 2023. His district covers roughly 60 percent of Arizona’s land mass. Fourteen of Arizona’s 22 sovereign tribal nations call it home. Nearly one in five residents is Native American. Apache and Navajo counties have among the highest rates of seniors on Medicaid of any counties in the nation.
And Crane doesn’t live there. He’s registered to vote in Oro Valley — a gated suburb of Tucson, more than an hour from the district’s nearest boundary.
That distance explains the votes.
The record, bill by bill
Crane’s votes against tribal and rural communities
Voted YES One Big Beautiful Bill Act (H.R. 1, July 2025) — Supported $1 trillion in Medicaid cuts and gutted the Inflation Reduction Act’s clean energy programs, including $1.5 billion in tribal clean energy funding already in progress. Rural hospitals in Page, Winslow, and Globe are now at risk of closure.
Voted NO Tribal Trust Land Homeownership Act (March 2026) — A bipartisan bill led by two Republicans to cut red tape blocking mortgages and housing development on tribal trust lands. Crane was one of the only members to vote against it. Native homeownership rates trail white homeownership rates by 18 percentage points.
Voted NO Housing for the 21st Century Act (February 2026) — A sweeping bipartisan housing affordability bill that passed 390–9. Crane was one of nine votes against it — in a district facing deep housing shortages on tribal lands.
Voted YES Public Broadcasting Rescission Package — Voted to eliminate federal funding for public media, gutting roughly half the operating budgets of KUYI (Hopi Reservation) and KGHR (Navajo Nation) — the two tribal radio stations in his own district.
“I grew up on the Navajo Nation without running water or electricity, and some parts of the district still do not have broadband or cell service. We tribal members heavily rely on the radio to get information.” — Jonathan Nez, former Navajo Nation President
What’s at stake with the radio stations
The defunding of tribal radio may be the sharpest illustration of just how out of touch Crane’s votes are with his constituents’ lives. KUYI and KGHR don’t just play music. They broadcast in Native languages — Hopi and Navajo — as part of ongoing language revitalization efforts. They announce polling places, road closures, health alerts, and emergency information. In communities without reliable cell service or broadband, they are the communications infrastructure.
Crane’s office did not respond to multiple requests for comment on the vote.
The bigger picture: Medicaid and the hospitals
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act — which Crane voted for — cuts roughly $1 trillion from Medicaid over 10 years. While individual Native Americans are exempt from the new work requirements (a hard-fought protection), the structural damage is severe. Tribal health centers that serve mixed Native and non-Native populations will see revenue drop. And the rural hospitals that serve everyone — in Page, Winslow, Globe, and Show Low — operate on margins so thin that any reduction in Medicaid reimbursement can mean closure.
More than 300 rural hospitals nationwide are currently at “immediate risk” of closure as a direct result of this bill. Apache and Navajo counties, with their extraordinarily high rates of Medicaid reliance, face some of the steepest consequences in the country.
What we’re doing about it
Arizona Native Democrats and Navajo County Democrats are on the ground — running voter education programs, building turnout infrastructure in communities that have been written off by Washington for generations, and making sure that every voter in CD-2 knows exactly what their congressman has done.
This is hard work. It happens on dirt roads, through P2P texts, at kitchen tables and chapter houses. It works. In three consecutive election cycles, our communities have outpaced Arizona’s Democratic turnout growth. We know how to do this.
But we need resources to do it at the scale this moment demands.
Flipping CD-2 matters beyond Arizona. It is a direct counter to the gerrymandering and voter suppression that has systematically excluded rural and Indigenous communities from political power across the South and Southwest. Your support makes this organizing possible.
Chip in to flip CD-2 and elect Democrats across the state →https://secure.actblue.com/donate/kossubstackand?refcode=WUKOS
In Solidarity,
Arizona Native Democrats
