I feel nauseously disappointed having to type this, since I don't like having to say this about any Democrat running for re-election, but I'm beginning to seriously doubt that U.S. Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (DNPL-ND) can win re-election.
A recent Fox News poll had Heitkamp trailing Republican challenger Kevin Cramer by 12 percentage points (41%-53%) among likely voters and by nine percentage points (41%-50%) among eligible voters. The sample of the poll was 29% Democratic, 54% Republican, and 17% Independent/Other by political party identification among likely voters, and 29% Democratic, 52% Republican, and 19% Independent/Other by political party identification among eligible voters. The poll represents an apparent surge in support for Cramer, despite Cramer having made a series of disgusting remarks about sexual assault. Furthermore, the poll appears to corroborate a recent poll by an obscure marketing firm called Strategic Research Associates showing Heitkamp trailing by ten percentage points (41%-51%).
While Fox News is a far-right propaganda outlet that promotes Donald Trump's brand of fascism on a virtually non-stop basis, their political polling arm has considerably more credibility than the Fox News Channel does or ever could have. However, at the same time, pre-election opinion polling by any organization is an extremely difficult task in North Dakota due to a ban on robo-calling for polling purposes and the lack of statewide voter registration in North Dakota, and pre-election opinion polling in North Dakota, despite North Dakota usually being a Republican stronghold, has historically been more favorable to Republicans and right-wing causes than actual electoral results (notably, polling in regards to November 2014 Measure 1 in North Dakota, the rejected fetal personhood amendment, missed the actual result by over 40 percentage points).
To say the least, if the North Dakota Dem-NPL faces a wipeout at the ballot box next month (I'm defining an electoral wipeout for the Dem-NPL as the Dem-NPL failing to win a single statewide race on the ballot this year (this includes the U.S. House race, since North Dakota elects a single U.S. Representative in an at-large district covering the entire state), as well as State Senator Erin Oban (DNPL-Bismarck) losing re-election, and I certainly hope that doesn't happen), things could get a lot worse for the Dem-NPL from an future electoral standpoint, as much as I hope that as many Dem-NPLers as possible get elected in North Dakota. If both Heitkamp and Oban (the latter is a possible 2020 gubernatorial candidate in North Dakota who is currently running for re-election for state senate) were to lose re-election this year and no Dem-NPLer were to win another statewide office that is on the ballot this year, that would mean that there would be zero statewide Dem-NPL elected officials starting in January of next year, and there would not be any bench of potential Dem-NPL candidates for statewide office that one could make an ironclad electability argument for. Even worse is that the post-2020 Census redistricting process for state legislative districts in North Dakota is going to almost certainly favor Republicans. Not even factoring in an expected Republican effort to gerrymander North Dakota, the area of North Dakota that has seen the largest population growth is, due to the Bakken oil boom, the far-western part of the state, which is heavily Republican. North Dakota currently has 47 state legislative districts, each electing one person to the state senate by first-past-the-post (i.e., plurality wins) voting and two people to the state house of representatives by plurality-at-large voting, and it would be expected that multiple (possibly several) effectively new districts would have to be created in the Bakken region at the expense of state legislative districts in other parts of North Dakota. After the 2020 Census, I would expect the Republicans to try to gerrymander North Dakota in such a way that all 47 state legislative districts are Republican-leaning to varying degrees, which would involve, if they can legally get away with it, splitting Native American reservations and Democratic-leaning or Democratic-friendly portions of cities like Fargo, Grand Forks, and Bismarck between several districts, giving Republicans at least an opportunity to win every single state legislative seat in North Dakota by 2024.
While this blog post reads like an obituary of the Democratic-Nonpartisan League Party of North Dakota, I certainly hope that it's a premature obituary, and there may be hope for the Dem-NPL yet.
The Dem-NPL's internal pollster, DFM Research, recently released a regional poll of the eastern part of the state, a region of North Dakota is expected to account for nearly half of the total vote in North Dakota this year, showing Heitkamp ahead of Cramer in the eastern part of North Dakota by 14 percentage points (54-39%), similar to her performance in the eastern part of North Dakota in the 2012 U.S. Senate race against Republican candidate Rick Berg. Furthermore, the poll shows that Heitkamp has a 59% favorability rating and 62% approval rating in the eastern part of North Dakota. The only way the DFM Research regional poll and the recent statewide polling in North Dakota by other firms can be corroborated is if Cramer is leading in the western and central parts of the state by a margin of somewhere in the neighborhood of 25 percentage points or greater, which would be tough to believe if Heitkamp is polling around her benchmark to win in the eastern part of the state. Furthermore, statewide pre-election opinion polling in the U.S. House race in North Dakota has repeatedly shown Republican candidate Kelly Armstrong struggling to get above 50%+MoE (i.e., fifty percent plus margin of error), meaning that Democratic candidate Mac Schneider has at least a theoretical path to victory.
A recent Fox News poll had Heitkamp trailing Republican challenger Kevin Cramer by 12 percentage points (41%-53%) among likely voters and by nine percentage points (41%-50%) among eligible voters. The sample of the poll was 29% Democratic, 54% Republican, and 17% Independent/Other by political party identification among likely voters, and 29% Democratic, 52% Republican, and 19% Independent/Other by political party identification among eligible voters. The poll represents an apparent surge in support for Cramer, despite Cramer having made a series of disgusting remarks about sexual assault. Furthermore, the poll appears to corroborate a recent poll by an obscure marketing firm called Strategic Research Associates showing Heitkamp trailing by ten percentage points (41%-51%).
While Fox News is a far-right propaganda outlet that promotes Donald Trump's brand of fascism on a virtually non-stop basis, their political polling arm has considerably more credibility than the Fox News Channel does or ever could have. However, at the same time, pre-election opinion polling by any organization is an extremely difficult task in North Dakota due to a ban on robo-calling for polling purposes and the lack of statewide voter registration in North Dakota, and pre-election opinion polling in North Dakota, despite North Dakota usually being a Republican stronghold, has historically been more favorable to Republicans and right-wing causes than actual electoral results (notably, polling in regards to November 2014 Measure 1 in North Dakota, the rejected fetal personhood amendment, missed the actual result by over 40 percentage points).
To say the least, if the North Dakota Dem-NPL faces a wipeout at the ballot box next month (I'm defining an electoral wipeout for the Dem-NPL as the Dem-NPL failing to win a single statewide race on the ballot this year (this includes the U.S. House race, since North Dakota elects a single U.S. Representative in an at-large district covering the entire state), as well as State Senator Erin Oban (DNPL-Bismarck) losing re-election, and I certainly hope that doesn't happen), things could get a lot worse for the Dem-NPL from an future electoral standpoint, as much as I hope that as many Dem-NPLers as possible get elected in North Dakota. If both Heitkamp and Oban (the latter is a possible 2020 gubernatorial candidate in North Dakota who is currently running for re-election for state senate) were to lose re-election this year and no Dem-NPLer were to win another statewide office that is on the ballot this year, that would mean that there would be zero statewide Dem-NPL elected officials starting in January of next year, and there would not be any bench of potential Dem-NPL candidates for statewide office that one could make an ironclad electability argument for. Even worse is that the post-2020 Census redistricting process for state legislative districts in North Dakota is going to almost certainly favor Republicans. Not even factoring in an expected Republican effort to gerrymander North Dakota, the area of North Dakota that has seen the largest population growth is, due to the Bakken oil boom, the far-western part of the state, which is heavily Republican. North Dakota currently has 47 state legislative districts, each electing one person to the state senate by first-past-the-post (i.e., plurality wins) voting and two people to the state house of representatives by plurality-at-large voting, and it would be expected that multiple (possibly several) effectively new districts would have to be created in the Bakken region at the expense of state legislative districts in other parts of North Dakota. After the 2020 Census, I would expect the Republicans to try to gerrymander North Dakota in such a way that all 47 state legislative districts are Republican-leaning to varying degrees, which would involve, if they can legally get away with it, splitting Native American reservations and Democratic-leaning or Democratic-friendly portions of cities like Fargo, Grand Forks, and Bismarck between several districts, giving Republicans at least an opportunity to win every single state legislative seat in North Dakota by 2024.
While this blog post reads like an obituary of the Democratic-Nonpartisan League Party of North Dakota, I certainly hope that it's a premature obituary, and there may be hope for the Dem-NPL yet.
The Dem-NPL's internal pollster, DFM Research, recently released a regional poll of the eastern part of the state, a region of North Dakota is expected to account for nearly half of the total vote in North Dakota this year, showing Heitkamp ahead of Cramer in the eastern part of North Dakota by 14 percentage points (54-39%), similar to her performance in the eastern part of North Dakota in the 2012 U.S. Senate race against Republican candidate Rick Berg. Furthermore, the poll shows that Heitkamp has a 59% favorability rating and 62% approval rating in the eastern part of North Dakota. The only way the DFM Research regional poll and the recent statewide polling in North Dakota by other firms can be corroborated is if Cramer is leading in the western and central parts of the state by a margin of somewhere in the neighborhood of 25 percentage points or greater, which would be tough to believe if Heitkamp is polling around her benchmark to win in the eastern part of the state. Furthermore, statewide pre-election opinion polling in the U.S. House race in North Dakota has repeatedly shown Republican candidate Kelly Armstrong struggling to get above 50%+MoE (i.e., fifty percent plus margin of error), meaning that Democratic candidate Mac Schneider has at least a theoretical path to victory.
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