Does Elizabeth Warren Has Statistically Less Native American Blood Than Average White American?
Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren released the results from a DNA test Monday proving that she has statistically less Native American DNA than the average American white person.
Warren’s DNA results are significant because of her extensive history of claiming Indian and Cherokee heritage in her political and professional career. Warren released the results of her test, which showed her to potentially have 1/1024 Native American heritage dating back six to 10 generations. This sets the lowest bound of Warren’s Indian heritage at .098 percent and the highest at 3 percent. (RELATED: Reminder: Elizabeth Warren Lied About Being Cherokee)
The average European-American has 0.18 percent Native American heritage, according to a comprehensive study by the Genetic Literacy Project.
The study reads:
With respect to European Americans, the percentages are much more different than African Americans or Latinos, with European American genomes being 98.6 percent European, 0.19 percent African and 0.18 percent Native American. In general, the numbers seem to agree with what one would expect given the history of American colonization by Europeans and their interactions with African and Native Americans.
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Warren referred to the findings as “strong evidence” for her native American heritage. Trump, who often mocks Warren as “Pocahontas,” said “who cares” when asked about the findings Monday morning.
EDITOR’S NOTE: It turns out genetic science is much more complicated than simple math and number comparisons. Washington Post did a fairly comprehensive deep dive on why the .18 number is a bit misleading (correcting even themselves in the process).
You can read their full fact check here. The headline has been updated for accuracy.