Democrats in North Dakota have a daunting task in front of them if they want to shift the upper midwestern state blue. The election results in 2020 weren’t close—Donald Trump beat Joe Biden 65.1% to 31.8%; or by 235,595 votes to 114,902.
Full of vast, open space and a small population that skews heavily to the right, North Dakota presents logistical, cultural and demographic problems to Democrats. What there is of party infrastructure in the state is dominated by center-right interests, led in part by former Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, who was unseated in 2018’s midterm election.
Here’s what experts say Democrats and progressives would need to do to see gains in the Peace Garden State.
The challenge
North Dakota’s total population is only 762,062, and its demographics favor the GOP: 86.9% of the state’s population is white, 3.4% Black, 5.6% Native American or Alaskan, and 4.1% Hispanic or Latino.
The state hasn’t gone blue for president since Lyndon Johnson’s 1964 landslide. But that’s not strictly indicative of its complicated politics.
Historically, North Dakota has sent a Democratic majority congressional delegation to Washington. From 1987 to 2011, both senators and the at-large representative from the state were Democrats. Today, however, the state is solidly Republican through and through, including in the governor’s mansion and the state legislature, where Republicans hold a supermajority in both chambers.
That all adds up to an “incredibly hard” situation for Democrats, said progressive activist Will Lovelace, who primarily organizes around housing in the Grand Forks area.
“I think it would be very difficult to make any large gains in 2022 or 2024, and certainly wouldn’t be able to flip the state,” Lovelace said.
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North Dakota Election results
What party leaders say
“We’re certainly not naive to the fact that it’s a state that went thirty-six points for President Trump in his first election,” Democratic state Rep. Joshua Boschee told Blue Tent.
Boschee, one of only 14 Democrats in the lower chamber, said that despite the disappointing election results, the party has “come out of the 2020 cycle stronger than I think we’ve been over the last decade.”
The state Democratic Party has a strong financial base—from around $100,000 in debt a few years ago to a surplus today—and is sustained by a growing membership. The party now needs to incorporate its messaging with that of progressive groups in the state, said Boscheee, and work together for the future.
“We continue to build that table of progressive groups,” Boschee said.
In a more general sense, Boschee continued, Democrats should tailor their message to the interests of North Dakotans. National politics and rhetoric won’t cut it in the upper Midwest state, where there’s a sense of mistrust of a party popularly portrayed in cable news as hostile to rural interests and energy development.
“Our work on the ground here in North Dakota is building trust with our neighbors that we are not Washington, D.C., Democrats,” Boschee said. “We are North Dakota Democrats.”
What activists say
But to Lovelace, the state party’s concentration on reaching out to the kinds of voters leadership believes are the key to winning in North Dakota is ignoring an enthusiastic and growing progressive electorate.
Of primary importance is wrestling the party apparatus and funding from right-wing Democrats whose approach to politics frequently—and intentionally—pushes more left-leaning candidates aside.
“A lot of the leadership, official and not, put up barriers to more progressive candidates,” Lovelace told Blue Tent.
Without investment across the board, Democrats are likely to continue to lose.
“Heidi Heitkamp has a pile of money that is used to fund more center candidates, and more progressive candidates either get nothing or get less,” said Lovelace.
In Lovelace’s view, Democrats could do four things to change the narrative in North Dakota and win back the trust of the electorate. First, as Boschee said, the state party needs to make clear it’s not the national party. Second, use their minority representation in state government to fight for—and probably lose—bills that will improve people’s lives. Third, stop reaching across the aisle to the GOP. And fourth, organize.
“Start participating in direct action outside of the legislature that materially helps working-class folks, like providing direct support to folks being evicted,” Lovelace said. “Throwing all of their energy into a legislature that gives little in return seems like a waste of time and resources.”
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North Dakota Demographics
The path to victory
It’s unlikely that the state is voting for a Democrat for president in the near future, or even by the end of the decade. Republicans have North Dakota locked down in state and federal politics. But if there’s hope, it lies in the ability of the party to make a North Dakota-specific strategy that distances itself from the message coming out of Washington and instead allies with organizers on the ground—who don’t guarantee support.
“There are a few groups in the more metro areas (Minot, Fargo, Grand Forks, Bismarck, etc.) that are willing to get in the streets regularly, and they are starting to grow and get more organized,” said Lovelace. “While they may vote Democrat, they are highly critical of the national party.”
Lovelace nonetheless urged caution.
“Organizing around indigenous and racial justice issues seem to be where a lot of the energy is outside of letter writing/calling/electoral-type action, but most folks don’t participate in this,” he said.
Boschee, however, sees a more direct path to working together that can act as a rising tide.
“There is work in trying to build collaboration among those organizations and building a table for them all to build off each other’s strengths,” Boschee said.
Long term, Boschee told Blue Tent, Democrats in North Dakota need to take the patient approach to flipping the state that Stacey Abrams adopted in Georgia. It won’t happen immediately, he warned, but if everyone comes together, there are opportunities that will build in time.
“We have to learn how to work together,” said Boschee.
In the short term, that means looking at the electorate and realizing that over 100,000 people voted for Joe Biden. It’s a not-insubstantial number of people in a state with only 762,062 residents.
“There are people wanting to vote for Democrats and support Democrats,” Boschee said. “We have to build relationships with them and then work with them to build relationships with their neighbors.”
