Lt. Gov. Tammy Miller told the North Dakota Monitor on Thursday that she would not participate in the state GOP's April 5-6 endorsement convention and would instead focus her efforts on winning the June 11 primary to replace North Dakota's retiring governor, Republican Doug Burgum.
Rep. Kelly Armstrong, who is the only other major Republican in the race, is trying a different approach: Armstrong, writes the Monitor, has been talking to local party gatherings and intends to compete for the party endorsement.
Miller didn't elaborate on the reasons behind her decision, except to say she wants "every voter in North Dakota to have a voice in choosing the next governor," but Armstrong's past service as chair of the state GOP likely means he has deeper ties to the party faithful who will attend the convention. Miller, by contrast, is a first-time candidate whose roots lie in the private sector; she was elevated to her current post by Burgum just over a year ago.
While conventions don't determine access to the primary ballot (as they sometimes do in other states), Republican office-seekers in North Dakota often drop out if they fail to win the support of delegates.
In the 2018 race for the state's open U.S. House seat, for instance, Armstrong beat a fellow state senator, Tom Campbell, by a 61-35 margin among convention-goers, which proved to be dispositive. While Campbell, the only other declared GOP candidate, initially announced he'd keep running after that setback, he soon changed his mind and ended his campaign. (Campbell is now running to replace Armstrong in Congress.)
However, other Republicans have won primaries after bypassing or losing the convention. Public Service Commissioner Kevin Cramer sat out the gathering during his bid for the House in 2012, and the endorsement went to colleague Brian Kalk. Two months later, though, primary voters favored Cramer 54-45, and he went on to win the general election. (Six years later, he was elected to the Senate.)
Burgum did participate in the 2016 convention when he first sought the governorship, though the first-time candidate likely knew that he had little chance to wrest the endorsement from the establishment favorite, Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem. And sure enough, Stenehjem outpaced state Rep. Rick Becker 51-38 as Burgum took third, with just 10%.
Becker dropped out, but the billionaire Burgum continued on to the primary, where he was rewarded with a 59-39 victory over Stenehjem thanks in part to self-funding. It wasn't just GOP voters, though, who had different preferences from Republican delegates. North Dakota is the only state in the nation without voter registration, so there were no barriers keeping Democrats from listening to influential party figures and voting to stop the more conservative Stenehjem from winning the GOP nomination.
P.S. Becker, like Campbell, is running for the House, but because he campaigned as an independent against Sen. John Hoeven in 2022, party rules prohibit him from competing at the convention.
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