Port: Far-right activists continue their take over local NDGOP leadership positions across the state
MINOT, N.D. — If you didn’t like how this just-completed legislative session went in Bismarck, what with the intense focus on things such as book bans and pronouns, you should brace yourselves for more of the same.
The populist, culture-war-obsessed, Donald Trump-aligned wing of the North Dakota Republican Party continues its ascendancy. As its candidates take local positions from which they can influence the candidate selection process, we can expect the NDGOP to continue its lurch away from the pragmatic, thoughtful approach to governing that has kept it in power for more than three decades.
In many parts of the state, the candidates selected by these small, sparsely attended committee meetings win on the ballot almost by default.
As I previously reported, in District 2, in the Tioga area, the local NDGOP committee chose as its chairman Jerol Gohrick, who made threats of violence against the Grand Forks City Council.
In Minot’s District 40, the local committee re-elected as chair Jay Lundeen, the organizer of an anti-vaccine conspiracy rally who berated then-Senate Majority Leader Rich Wardner outside the Senate chamber.
