North Dakota U.S. Senate Race

Race of the Day

September 12, 2006
56 Days Until Election Day

North Dakota U.S. Senate

Status: Democrat Incumbent
2004 Presidential Result: Red State (Midwest)

Outlook: Likely Democrat

It is a reasonable assumption that the biggest Republican let-down of this entire election cycle was the decision of North Dakota’s Republican Governor John Hoeven, to stay in his current job, and not challenge Democrat incumbent Senator Kent Conrad. A Hoeven vs. Conrad match-up would have been a battle of North Dakota political titans, as both men have extremely high job approval numbers, which are among the highest of any Governor or U.S. Senator, anywhere in America. Despite the fact that Conrad is so popular, the overwhelming Republican tilt of North Dakota would have made him extremely vulnerable against Hoeven.

After giving it much consideration, and after undoubtedly being strongly encouraged by the White House and the NRSC, Hoeven decided that a Senate campaign or a stint in Washington was not for him, and Republicans were left scrambling to find a candidate to take on Conrad, who is often described as a “prairie populism” mixture of being culturally moderate to conservative while being more liberal on pocket book issues. That sort of profile apparently suits North Dakota well, as even though the state votes heavily Republican for President and the GOP dominates much of state government, North Dakota has sent three very ideologically similar Democrats to the nation’s capital since the 1980s. Of the three of them, Conrad is actually regarded as the strongest politically.

Conrad has a bit of an interesting political history himself. Upon being initially elected to the Senate in 1986, he promised to not run for reelection if the deficit was not cut a certain amount. When that did not happen, Conrad reluctantly agreed to fulfill his campaign pledge and not run again in 1992. However, North Dakota’s other U.S. Senator happened to pass away that year, and Conrad was able to run for the other U.S. Senate seat, become the state’s senior Senator, and claim to not have broken a pledge to run for “reelection.”

When Hoeven took himself out of the running for 2006, some other Republicans who had been elected to statewide office were mentioned as potential strong challengers to Conrad, but they also decided not to run. Thus, the Republican standard bearer has wound up being Dwight Grotberg, a farmer, whose elected experience appears to be limited to serving on the Anderson Town Council.

From what little I am able to gage about Grotberg from his campaign website, he appears to be a solid sort of individual. He has an attractive young family and says that he has managed to recover from a serious spinal cord injury suffered through his farming. He does not seem like the kind of candidate who will do anything to embarrass himself or the party and he probably should be able to get near a third of the state’s vote just for breathing and having an R next to his name. He simply does not have much of a chance against Conrad though, barring something completely cataclysmic for the incumbent or national Democrats.

I would be willing to rate to rate this race as “Safe Democrat” if there were any kind of polling data available. I do not at all expect Grotberg to win, but it is impossible to ignore just how red a state North Dakota is. Perhaps, he can score some points by saying that having a state Congressional delegation made up entirely of people from the Congressional minority, and not in the party of the President, is detrimental to the state. Maybe as the election heads down the homestretch, Grotberg can find a way to effectively tie the Democrat incumbent to the very liberal national figures in his party who would be a lot more unpopular in North Dakota, by claiming a vote for Conrad, is a vote to make Ted Kennedy a powerful Committee Chair, etc.
It just seems like Grotberg is probably the wrong challenger, running in the wrong year, against the wrong incumbent, to be able to make that strategy work though On Election Day, a heck of a lot of people who voted for George W. Bush and John Hoeven two years ago, and would do so again today, will mark their ballot once again to send a populist Democrat (actually two of them), back to the legislative branch of the federal government.

Grotberg campaign link:

http://www.dwightgrotberg.com/

2006 Senate races predicted thus far: 14 D, 7 R
Post-election Senate balance of power predicted thus far: 41 D, 47 R