It's Just A Steady Stream Of Bad News For North Dakota Democrats

It seems state Senator George Sinner may not be running for re-election in District 46. This after confirming, again, that he’s on the long, long list of Democrats deciding not to run for governor.

This just two years after Sinner – son of former Governor George A. Sinner –  was on the statewide ballot for Democrats running for the U.S.  House against Kevin Cramer.

“Sinner is hoping to run for another term in the state senate, but he tells KFGO News that he may decide not to seek re-election because of what he calls ‘personal issues,'” KFGO reports.

I wonder what the personal issues are?

Democrats are less than a month away from their statewide convention, but have yet to announce any actual candidates for statewide office. Their excuse for that has been a suggestion that their focused on picking up seats in the Legislature.

But it’s not clear that recruitment for legislative candidates is going all that well for Democrats either, and Sinner’s announcement may add yet another recruitment challenge in a district where the two seats in the state House are held by Republicans (Jim Kasper and Kathy Hawken).

Republicans have announced two candidates for District 46 (Hawken is retiring). Developer Jim Roers is running for the Senate seat and his daughter, Shannon Roers-Jones, is running for the House.

If Sinner does run, he has beaten Roers before. In 2012 he won his first term in the Legislature by about 300 votes over Roers.

But starting out an election cycle saying you maybe don’t want to run for office again is no way to set yourself up for what would undoubtedly be another tight race.