Poll: ND Republicans Have Big Leads Over Dems, Over 83% Say State Is On Right Track

The folks at the Brighter Future Alliance – a 501c4 non-profit committed to promoting the free enterprise system and pro energy development public policy, as they describe themselves – sent me results of polling they’ve conducted in some of North Dakota’s statewide races that will be on the ballot in November.

I referred to some of it earlier this morning in my post about state Senator George Sinner getting into the US House race against Republican incumbent Kevin Cramer and Libertarian Party candidate Jack Seaman. They also have numbers for the two Public Service Commission races, the Tax Commissioner race, the Attorney General race and a “right way, wrong way” rating for how things in the state are going.

Here’s the list of results. Note that these are all the candidates in the race right now. The state conventions that will officially endorse them aren’t for a couple of weeks and the actual primary balloting isn’t until June.

US House

Republican – Kevin Cramer: 50.25%
Democrat – George Sinner: 30.50%
Libertarian – Jack Seaman: 3.5%
Undecided: 15%
Refused: 0.75%

Public Service Commission Race #1

Republican – Brian Kalk: 52.75%
Democrat – Todd Reisenhauer: 24.75%
Undecided: 22.00%
Refused: 0.5%

Public Service Commission Race #2

Republican – Julie Fedorchak: 45.00%
Democrat – Tyler Axness: 23.50%
Undecided: 30.5%
RefuseD: 1.00%

Tax Commissioner

Republican – Ryan Rauschenberger: 50.50%
Democrat – Jason Astrup: 22.25%
Libertarian – Anthony Mangnall: 6.25%
Undecided: 20.25%
Refused: 0.75%

Attorney General

Republican – Wayne Stenehjem: 76.00%
Democrat – Kiara Kraus-Parr: 14.00%
Undecided: 9.75%
Refused: 0.25%

The polling was conducted between March 5th and 9th, with 400 respondents and a confidence rating of 95%.

Not surprisingly, the Republican candidates who are on the ballot for the first time – both Rauschenberger and Fedorchak were appointed to their positions by Governor Jack Dalrymple – are polling a little behind candidates who have been on the ballot before. The closest race is the US House race between Cramer and Sinner, though even that one shows a roughly 20-point gap.

There’s no polling in the Agriculture Commissioner race where incumbent Doug Goehring is facing an endorsement challenge from fellow Republican Judy Estenson. Democrat Ryan Taylor just announce his candidacy in the race last week. Frankly, I think that might be the most competitive race on the ballot.

And here’s the mountain Democrats are going to have to climb to get traction in 2014: They’re going to have to convince a state fully of most happy, contented people that they should be neither happy nor contented.

According to this polling, 83.5% believe North Dakota is on the right track.

Right Direction 83.50%
Wrong Direction 11.75%
Don’t Know 4.75%

Expect Democrats and their media surrogates to try and counter this with endless negativity about the state’s oil boom and it’s handling by the Republican-dominated state government.