Justin Jones enters race with sharp challenge to Navajo government
Special to the Times | Donovan Quintero
Justin Jones, a Marine Corps veteran and Rock Point, Ariz., attorney, is making his second bid for Navajo Nation president after finishing third in the 2022 primary.
FARMINGTON
Attorney Justin Jones drove to the Navajo Election Administration office in Shiprock on Thursday morning with his son, daughter, nephew and two sisters, filed to run for Navajo Nation president on the first day of the filing period, and by evening stood before a packed parking lot in Farmington arguing that a government he says is crippled by corruption, infighting and bureaucracy must be reclaimed by the people it was built to serve.
“I listened to you. I heard you. I felt your pain. I felt your suffering. I’ve seen the tears, some I have wiped the tears away for you, gave you words of condolences. I prayed for you. I burned cedar for you,” Jones told supporters at the April 9 rally. “I said it’s going to be OK. There’s a better tomorrow.”
He told the crowd he is now officially a candidate with 102 days until the July 21 primary.
A Marine Corps veteran and Rock Point, Arizona, native, Jones is Bit’ahnii and born for Ta’neeszahnii. His maternal grandfather is Kinłichíi’nii and his paternal grandfather is Áshįįhí. He is making his second bid for the Nation’s highest office after finishing third in the 2022 primary with 8,769 votes in a 15-candidate field.
To read the full article, please see the April 16, 2026, edition of the Navajo Times.
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