MINOT, N.D. — Like so many of the things he’s promoted, disgraced former President Donald Trump’s insistance that Republicans vote late, on Election Day, turned out to be stupid. “Vote on Election Day, because it’s harder for them to cheat,” he said at his last pre-election rally in Ohio . “It’s much harder because they don’t know…
Port: Data show the NDGOP has an extremism problem that’s distorting its candidate selection process
MINOT, N.D. — The NDGOP has a big problem with its candidate selection process. The people participating in it are not remotely representative of North Dakota’s electorate. The heated U.S. Senate race, in which MAGA-world darling Rick Becker took on long-time Senate incumbent John Hoeven in a three-way race with Democratic-NPL candidate Katrina Christiansen, exposes…
Port: Hoeven and Cramer on the wrong side of history, and probably their constituents, on same-sex marriage
MINOT, N.D. — Yesterday a bill to codify same-sex marriage in federal law passed cloture in the United States Senate. Basically, a supermajority vote to end any filibuster of the bill so that it can proceed to a final vote where it will pass or fail based on a simple majority. Both of North Dakota’s…
Port: With new leaders, North Dakota’s Legislature seemingly sees a power shift, from east to west
MINOT, N.D. — “After last night’s House/Senate leadership elections, it’s official, the power has moved out of the [Red River] valley and into the west.” That’s what one member of the state House, from a legislative district that is not in the Red River Valley on North Dakota’s eastern edge, texted to me this morning.…
Port: The NDGOP has eschewed Trump’s excesses, and it’s served them well
MINOT, N.D. — Across the nation, Republicans had a very bad night last Tuesday. They were expected to sweep back into majorities in Senate and the House. They ended up falling short in the Senate, and while there are still some races yet to finish, there is a not-zero chance that they fall short of…
Port: What if what wins elections isn’t what’s good for the country?
Minot, N.D. — I’m a sucker for a good baseball metaphor, so when Derek Thompson wrote in the Atlantic about what the “moneyball” approach to America’s pastime has done to the game’s appeal as entertainment, and what that might mean for other areas of our lives, it caught my attention. Moneyball, for those of you who aren’t…
Port: What if Republicans just acknowledged that we have an extremism problem and took responsibility for it?
Minot, N.D. — I wrote my weekend column about the recent debates between North Dakota’s U.S. Senate candidates. Those events featured Republican incumbent John Hoeven’s angry challengers — former Republican Rick Becker and Democratic-NPL candidate Katrina Christiansen — laying their campaign strategies bare. They hope to create enough hate for Hoeven that one of them…
Port: Mund still isn’t raising much money, and she’s spending even less
Minot, N.D. — In her first campaign disclosure, covering the third quarter of this year, U.S. House candidate Cara Mund reported raising just $77,790.75. She roughly doubled that amount in the pre-general election report her campaign just filed with the FEC. From October 1 to October 19, Mund reported taking in just over $75,000. She…
Port: Football championships haven’t done much to help NDSU’s bottom line
MINOT, N.D. — Big-time collegiate athletics programs, like the football team at North Dakota State University, are a drain on university resources. They inflate the cost of attendance and the cost of public institutions to taxpayers. Yet the defenders of these programs insist they are a boon to the universities that host them. They’re good…
Port: Hey New York Times, don’t be so surprised that Fargo is a nice place
MINOT, N.D. — Freelance journalist Danielle Braff, in a recent travel dispatch published by The New York Times , had some very nice things to say about Fargo. In a lengthy profile, studded with beautiful pictures, Braff extolled the bars and restaurants and general cultural milieu of our state’s largest city. She even zoomed out a bit…