Why Democrats Aren't Likely To Gain Ground In North Dakota This Year

After a negative post about the NDGOP’s dismal 2014 fundraising, I suppose I should give Republicans a pick-me-up, so here it is. According to the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, North Dakota is tops in the nation.

“More than 178,000 interviews nationwide fueled the 2013 analysis, which examined Americans’ perceptions on topics such as physical and emotional health, healthy behaviors, work environment, social and community factors, financial security, and access to necessities such as food, shelter and healthcare to create a composite well-being rank for each state,” reads the report. “Launched in 2008, the Well-Being Index provides unmatched, in-depth insight into the well-being of populations.”

As you can see from the chart below, North Dakota saw a big jump in 2013 going from 19th, the bottom of the 2nd quintile, all the way up to numero uno.

From a political perspective, this is significant for two reasons.

First, North Dakotans are happy. We can point to this metric, and others, to illustrate that. And happy, contented people are unlikely to vote for big changes.

Second, the contentment in North Dakota seems to be growing. In fact, that growing contentment probably explains a couple of things that are happening in North Dakota politics right now. Democrats and their liberal media surrogates are working really hard to paint the state as a corrupt, oil-addled disaster zone (despite, you know, what our eyes and ears tell us). Yet, Democrats are also struggling mightily with candidate recruitment. So much so that, here at the end of February, they still have only one statewide candidate in the race.