North Dakota Democrats Launch District Conventions Without A Single Statewide Candidate

The NDGOP has been holding their local district conventions for a couple of weeks now, and attending those conventions are a full slate of statewide candidates.

For the open races they have three candidates for governor, two candidates for state auditor, and one candidate for insurance commissioner. The Republicans have incumbents in the rest of the statewide races.

Democrats, meanwhile, are getting ready to launch their district conventions, but party activists attending will have exactly zero statewide candidates to hear from despite assurance from party leaders that they have candidates ready to announce any day now.

That graphic is just darling.

“They’re here,” it says.

Who is here? Well, not any statewide candidates.

It’s not even clear that some of the Democrat district conventions will feature legislative candidates. That was certainly the case during the 2014 cycle when Democrats filled legislative races with a flurry of candidate filings just before the deadline (they still managed to leave 15 legislative races unchallenged).

I know I write about this a lot, but it’s just remarkable to see a political party in this level of disarray. And it’s not for want of organization. The Democrats actually have a larger staff for their state party than the Republicans do, and arguably do a better job of marketing what with all the slick social media graphics.

But it all means nothing if they have no candidates to support.