Amid Scandal and a Push for Impeachment North Dakota’s Top Elected Officials Join Trump’s Re-Election Campaign

There were some headlines earlier this week about incumbent President Donald Trump losing some popularity in North Dakota ahead of the 2020 election year.

That was according to one poll, anyway, and I’m dubious of its findings for several reasons. Still, scandal has enveloped the Trump administration, and there is an ardent for impeachment in Congress.

Yet amid all of that, Trump’s re-election campaign has the backing of North Dakota’s top elected officials.

A press release sent out by the Trump-Pence 2020 campaign, headquartered in New York City, names Governor Doug Burgum along with North Dakota’s congressional delegation – Senators John Hoeven and Kevin Cramer along with Representative Kelly Armstrong – as “honorary state chairs” of the campaign.

You can see the full press release below. It also names Stephanie Alexander as the regional director for the campaign.

“Our North Dakota Trump Victory leadership team will help to replicate and expand the President’s 35-point victory in North Dakota in 2016, delivering a 2020 win for both the President and GOP candidates up and down the ballot,” Trump campaign manager Brad Pascale, and RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, are quoted as saying in the release. “The people of North Dakota spoke loudly when they delivered President Trump a commanding mandate to lead in 2016. After delivering historic economic successes for the men and women of North Dakota, our North Dakota leadership will pave the way for another strong victory for President Trump in 2020.”

The release also contains this listing of the President’s claimed accomplishments and how they relate to North Dakota:

Cramer, who was just elected to the U.S. Senate last year, won’t be on the ballot in the 2020 cycle. Neither will Hoeven since his six-year term doesn’t expire until 2022.

Burgum and Armstrong will, however. Burgum was first elected in 2016, on the same ballot as Trump. Armstrong was elected to his first term in the House last year, but that’s a two-year term. House members have to campaign every cycle.

It will be interesting to see how Trump’s national political struggles play for down-ballot races like Burgum’s and Armstrong’s. I think it may touch even legislative races in the state, though lightly.

As I wrote at the beginning of this post, Trump’s popularity in North Dakota will likely prove very resilient. Trump is a populist Republican, and North Dakota is a state full of populist Republicans.

Besides, what are North Dakotans going to do, vote en masse for Elizabeth Warren?

It seems unlikely. I suspect Republicans in North Dakota will be fine in 2020 thanks, again, to the durability of Trump’s popularity here and the fact that the North Dakota Democratic Party is diminished to the point of being a paper tiger.

Here’s the full press release:

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