The
North Dakota Democratic-NPL Party released a
statement showing Democratic candidates had unprecedented support in Tuesday's primary election, outpolling the candidates in the Republican primary in 46 out of 53 counties. Now I am not one to bank on extrapolating general election success from primary results but...
... the article points out that statewide Republican vote totals were static from the 2004 primary while Dem-NPL candidates like Earl Pomeroy received up to 45%
more votes than in 2004. Turnout for the primary was up from 18.9% to 22.5 percent and almost all of those additional votes were for Dem-NPLers. While there were a few local issues (taxes mainly) that drove turnout up in a few places there wasn't really any contested races on the ballots that would drive up turnout. So I don't know why turnout was up pretty much across the board. However, North Dakota does have a lot of National Guard and regular service personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan right now, and there have been a lot of stories about military funerals and prolonged rehab in the state press lately. I dunno. Something is going on here and it feels good.
We could be seeing a progressive resurgence in North Dakota after two decades of wandering in the wilderness. I have spoken to a legislator who credits the excitement in the state to Dean's nose pickers who have been recruiting activists and leaders like gangbusters. Amazing the kind of return you can get when you invest a little cash on the front end. (Begala, there's a clue on line one!) Vive la revolucion!