Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren will face off against a slew of candidates in the race for the tribe’s presidency in November — 15 challengers to be exact.
Nygren took the tribe by storm when he beat out incumbent Jonathan Nez four years ago. But since, he has faced mounting scrutiny over allegations of ethics violations and misuse of public funds. So, it was after much speculation that he officially announced he would run again last month with his signature black open crown hat as a prop.
“I will be tossing my hat into the race for Navajo Nation president. Let’s keep building on the momentum that we’ve built so far. Keep moving forward, Wólibee Yideeskạ́ạ́góó,” said Nygren.
But, he’ll have some real competition Gabriel Pietrorazio, who covers Indigenous affairs at KJZZ joined The Show to talk about it.
Full conversation
LAUREN GILGER: So President Nygren has found himself in the hot seat quite a bit since coming into office as kind of a changemaker candidate, this businessman outsider kind of candidate. What was he accused of here?
GABRIEL PIETRORAZIO: Essentially he was accused of misusing public funds and using basically the treasury to pay for things that shouldn’t be allowed to do so through his former chief of staff, Patrick Sandoval.
And there were ethics complaints filed by a special prosecutor based out of Albuquerque, and that is still ongoing. That’s a pending matter, legal matter ... that’s working its way through Window Rock and the courts there.
And President Nygren’s challengers are using that as political leverage essentially to help bolster their primary candidacy bids in this race ahead of July.
LAUREN GILGER: Yeah. We’ll talk about that more in a moment, but that special prosecutor you mentioned called for basically his immediate resignation. As you said, that’s still working its way through the courts, but the council is also trying to oust him. Was it surprising, you think, Gabe, that he decided to run again?
GABRIEL PIETRORAZIO: I had a lot of discussions with President Nygren over the last year-plus, and it would come up from time to time, and it wasn’t ever certain either way. I think there was that opportunity to leave the door open, so to speak, for a bid. And I think it was a bit surprising to some that he would run again.
But there are still a number of his supporters on the reservation, specifically who are supporting him and trying to keep moving forward, as his new slogan focuses on, for this time around as opposed to four years ago.
LAUREN GILGER: Moving forward. All right. OK, so let’s talk about some of these challengers, Gabe. Sixteen candidates is a whole lot of candidates, but there are some standouts, it sounds like, in these challengers.
Tell us about one of these kind of notable people on the ballot here, or who maybe will be on the ballot, who seems to be kind of taking no names. He’s really going after Nygren. His name is Justin Jones. Tell us about him.
GABRIEL PIETRORAZIO: That’s right, Justin Jones. A bit of background: He’s from Rough Rock, which is in northeastern Arizona, just north of Ganado, south of Kayenta. He was actually an Operation Desert Shield and Desert Storm vet, served in the Marines, and he got his J.D. from the University of Kansas School of Law.
And he’s been really focused on fundamental law, which is a guiding principle in Navajo law essentially that dictates how the Diné people kind of engage with government and each other. And so he’s looking at a lot of these concerns within the current administration, and he claims that there’s corruption at every corner of Window Rock. That’s one of his talking points on the campaign trail. Making stops here in Scottsdale all the way to Albuquerque, making a lot of time interfacing with different Navajo peoples living both on and off the reservation ahead of the primary.
And one of the things — we talk about politicians and their star-making moments — this was his moment, essentially, was when the invoices that we were talking about earlier were released by the House speaker, Crystalyne Curley, who chairs the Navajo Nation Council as part of the ousting effort against Nygren. Where there were about two dozen or so invoices for charges that shouldn’t be applied effectively to the administration. And one of them detailed an argument that President Nygren had with his wife that made viral waves, so to speak, on social media.
LAUREN GILGER: Yeah, yeah. And here he is talking a little bit about that.
JUSTIN JONES: To get out of town because the president was sick of her [bleep]. President needed to get away for his expenses and travel. If the Navajo Nation is going to pay us $3,000, maybe some of us we need to intentionally get in an argument with our wives.
LAUREN GILGER: Hmm. All right. So let’s talk then, Gabe, about the current speaker of the Navajo Nation Council who you just mentioned, Crystalyne Curley. She’s also running.
GABRIEL PIETRORAZIO: That’s right. And I would say she’s probably been the most vocal opponent within the government. She’s not, obviously, part of the Nygren administration, but has been the most vocal in the ousting efforts. There’s no blood lost between both her and Nygren, and I think she’s trying to represent that in her bid as she talked about recently during her campaign announcement as well.
LAUREN GILGER: Yeah, let’s hear that.
CRYSTALYNE CURLEY: I recognize that many of our Navajo people feel disengaged and dissatisfied. And more than ever, our people want to be heard. Our people want to have a seat at the table when it comes to decisions that affect all of us. Our people need a leader in the office of the president who will bring people together, not divide us.
LAUREN GILGER: Gabe, there has never been a woman president of the Navajo Nation, right? Will that kind of play into her campaign?
GABRIEL PIETRORAZIO: I think it certainly has an edge. We had talked before about Richelle Montoya, who was the vice president under Nygren, who accused him of sexual harassment. That was later found not to be the case by a special investigator. There was a possibility that Montoya would step up to become the first, and that’s not happening at this point in time, so it clears the way for Curley to possibly take that moniker.
LAUREN GILGER: All right. So, Gabe, how do these elections work on the Navajo Nation? This is a sovereign nation. They will have a primary in July, a general election at the same time as the rest of the general elections on Nov. 3. But they don’t have, like, political parties, right?
GABRIEL PIETRORAZIO: That’s correct. The candidates themselves would essentially ascribe to a party, they can in their respective states whether they live in Arizona or Utah or New Mexico, depending on what part of Navajo Nation you’re in. But as it pertains as a candidate running for Navajo government, there are no official parties.
You can kind of tell based on their political affiliations where their leanings are. We saw that, the kind of the meshing of political ideologies when Jonathan Nez ran with Myron Lizer, who’s also running in this race. He is an outwardly Republican Trump supporter who aligned with Jonathan Nez, who’s a Democrat running now for Congress.
So, we saw that previously, and that’s essentially how this works is that each of the candidates will run on their own, and then after the primary occurs, they will then have a period of time to pick their vice presidential partners, running mates essentially, to create a ticket. And the top two of the 16 will be in the general election.
LAUREN GILGER: OK. So last 30 seconds then, Gabe. What do we know about Nygren’s popularity after these accusations, the impact of this kind of scandal? Like, do you think we’re going to have a real race here?
GABRIEL PIETRORAZIO: I think it’s going to be competitive. I think the numbers show that only two of those 16 candidates will move forward. With every additional person on the ballot — and you’ll be able to see all of those names on our website here from The Show — that it takes out some of the lead that could be accrued in the primary. So I think this field is really large, and it’ll be as competitive, I think, as ever at this time for this race.
LAUREN GILGER: All right. We’ll watch and see. KJZZ’s Gabriel Pietrorazio joining us. Gabe, thanks so much.
GABRIEL PIETRORAZIO: Thanks for having me.
2026 Navajo Nation presidential candidates
-
Lithium is a key metal for electric vehicle batteries and there is a global push to find new sources of it. There is currently only one lithium mine in operation in the United States, but that is about to change — and drastically. -
Ancient Tohono O’odham artifacts were found not far from the Arizona-Mexico border – and now the tribe is calling for their return. -
A mining company is considering digging for copper on grazing land near the chapter house of the Coppermine community on the western Navajo Nation. -
The accident occurred about a half mile east of Highway 160 and state Route 98 near Shonto in Navajo County. This is the first reported incident since hauling along the 300-mile interstate route began nearly two years ago. -
U.S. Customs and Border Protection said the approximately 1,000-year-old geoglyph in Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge was disturbed by border wall contractors nearly two weeks ago.
