Poll: Republicans Dominating Nearly Every State Wide Race

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Written By:
Rob Port

Oct 9, 2012
7:11pm

Yesterday Valley News Live, partnered with Mason-Dixon, released polling in North Dakota’s federal races showing Republican Kevin Cramer dominating Democrat Pam Gulleson in the state’s House race and Republican Rick Berg tied with Democrat Heidi Heitkamp in the Senate race.

Now they’ve released polls for some of the other statewide races. You can see all the details here (though noticeably absent are demographic details on the full poll). Here’s a summary:

Governor: Dalrymple 62%, Taylor 24%

Interesting to note that, despite Taylor making a big issue out of the crime and other impacts of the oil boom, Dalrymple saw 65% support from respondents in western ND, second only to the 66% level of support he enjoys in Bismarck. That’s a big blow to the subtly anti-oil message Democrats have been pushing, playing on some of the frustrations with rapid growth in the western part of the state. Clearly, it’s not getting traction.

Treasurer: Schmidt 47%, Mushik 24%

A lot of undecideds in this race – 29% – and most of them seem to be Democrats 44% of whom say they’re undecided (just 15% of Republicans say that). Still, though, this is unlikely to break Mushik’s way. North Dakotans like voting for names they recognize, and I doubt many North Dakotans could name the Democrat candidate for Treasurer.

Superintendent: Baesler 30%, Potter 40%

This is ostensibly a non-partisan office, but Baesler was endorsed by the NDGOP for this run. Potter is running as an independent, and is probably enjoying some support from name recognition given that he ran for Senate in 2010. He did poorly – he got just 22% of the vote – but in down-ticket races like this one name recognition matters a lot. There are still a lot of undecideds, and that could certainly break Baesler’s way, but given that she won’t have the benefit of a Republican partisan affiliation on the ballot it may be time for her to worry.

Here are the other races, and there’s not really a lot to say about either. Both incumbents will undoubtedly win re-election handily.

Insurance Commissioner: Hamm 57%, Potter 30%

State Auditor: Peterson 50%, Kelsh 30%

The dominance of Republicans on every other part of the ballot is another problem for Heidi Heitkamp, who after months of vicious campaigning hasn’t managed to move the needle at all versus Rick Berg. Berg is likely to get a boost from voters casting ballots for all these other Republicans.