Koch Brothers Group Says They Won’t Be Backing Kevin Cramer in His Senate Race Against Heidi Heitkamp
Congressman Kevin Cramer visits with Madison Rodgers, left, and Sierra Heitkamp of the North Dakota Young Republicans Friday at the state Republican convention at the Alerus Center in Grand Forks. photo by Eric Hylden/Grand Forks Herald
This probably doesn’t matter very much:
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — The political groups affiliated with billionaire conservative businessman Charles Koch will not support Rep. Kevin Cramer’s (R-N.D.) bid against Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.), citing Cramer’s record on spending.
“He’s inconsistent across the board on these issues and that makes it hard to support him,” said Tim Phillips, the president of Americans For Prosperity.
“He’s not leading on the issues where this country needs leadership right now, issues like spending … or trade,” Phillips added. “We can’t support him at this time and we’ve met with his team, explained this and lobbied them on this.”
Let’s not forget that the Democrats have invested a lot of time and money into portraying the Koch brothers as these sort of right wing extremists. Heck, here’s a Heitkamp staffer attacking me on Twitter back in March for supposedly being a lackey for the Koch brothers (I’m not and never have been):
Another bogus, Heidi-obsessed @robport column. Perhaps he's upset because the Koch brothers funded much of his previous work?
— Julia Krieger (@jnkrieger) March 26, 2018
Unfortunately for out-of-state billionaires—and shills like you who'll do their dirty work—North Dakotans know Heidi, her record & they know a false ad when they see it.
— Julia Krieger (@jnkrieger) March 26, 2018
What we have, then, are these evil right-wing puppet masters (as our liberal friends see them) basically saying that Kevin Cramer is too moderate for them.
What exactly are Democrats going to do with that?
Also, the only people who really matter in this race are North Dakota voters, and how do we expect them to react to this news? Those conservative enough to let the Koch brothers and their various political enterprises sway them probably aren’t going to be switching to Heidi Heitkamp any time soon.
The most Heitkamp can hope for is that this demoralizes right-of-center voters in the state and keeps them at home, but that seems unlikely. The Kochs have been very anti-Trump. North Dakota is very pro-Trump.
I don’t think this changes much at all.
