Democrats Get First Candidates West Of Bismarck

As of about a week ago North Dakota Democrats, who have taken aim at the oil industry in North Dakota, didn’t have any candidates in the actual oil patch. My story about the dearth of on-the-ballot Democrats from the west was picked up by the Dickinson Press, and in that story Democrats promised (even after their local conventions had been completed) to put some candidates in these races.

It seems they’ve succeeded. As of this morning Democrats have added three western candidates in Districts 1 (Williston), 37 (Dickinson) and 39 (Watford City/Bowman).

In District 1 Dr. Joe Adducci, an obstetrician, is running for the state House.

In District 37 Amanda Kubik is running for the state House. She’s a former campaign staffer for US House candidate Pam Gulleson, and her LinkedIn profile lists her as living in Fargo though according to the Dickinson Press article she recently moved to Dickinson. She’s also the chair of the District 37 Democrats, and the one who promised the Dickinson Press a week ago that she’d find candidates. Today she’s saying she decided to run a couple of days ago.

Maybe that candidate search didn’t go so well.

In District 39 Maddison Voigt is running for the state House. She’s from Killdeer.

Having candidates in western North Dakota is pretty important to North Dakota Democrats given that they plan on making oil development and oil impacts an issue in the 2014 elections. It’s hard to be taken seriously on that topic, though, when you can’t recruit many candidates in the oil patch.

Overall Republicans have 61 candidates in the race for 72 legislative seats on the ballot, including 48 incumbents.

Democrats have 32 candidates so far of which just 10 are incumbents.

There are ten days left until the April 7th filing deadline to be on the primary ballot as a Democrat. Below is our running list of legislative candidates statewide. If you see any errors or candidates we’re missing please contact me at rob@sayanythingblog.com.