Those who attend party conventions to endorse candidates often believe that they are helping the party decide who will run under the party's banner. Theoretically, candidates endorsed by the party receive support from the party, including access to the RNC Data Center, the party’s nonprofit mailing rates for postage, as well as other practical and logistical support. But the truth is, these are just endorsing conventions, not nominating conventions. The vote for endorsement is little more than a straw poll where party members express their preference. The real choice of who will run on the party ticket is decided in the June primary.
Since North Dakota does not have voter registration, Democrats and independents can easily vote in contested Republican primaries. This is a system that's been in effect for decades and seems to have worked to everyone's satisfaction – until recently.
Beginning in 2012, when Kevin Cramer challenged party-endorsed Brian Kalk for U.S. Congress, the cracks started forming. Cramer bypassed the party's state convention endorsement and went straight to the Primary instead.
In 2016, Doug Burgum, came in a distant third in a three-way race at the state convention. Despite coming in third at the convention, Burgum challenged Wayne Stenehjem for governor in the June primary. Stenehjem's decades-long years of service to the party and support from party leadership was no match for Burgum's money and the perception that he was a conservative outsider, ready to change the status quo.
This is where party leadership made a marked transition away from supporting the convention process. As dissatisfied grassroots party members became increasingly more involved in their district conventions, state and district leadership began to push back, opposing the results of legislative district endorsing conventions.
In 2020 Burgum put more than $3 million into three legislative races and the campaign for State Treasurer. Many inside the party took this as a rejection of a grassroots process that produces the candidates that best represent the party's ideals, since they are vetted by party members.
Last December the NDGOP entertained a rule change to do away with all pretense of endorsement and hold the convention after the June Primary to “celebrate GOP victories.” The proposed rule change narrowly failed to pass, but it revealed a growing rift within the party.
The result is that this year there are several hotly contested legislative races throughout the state. Most people agree that competition, especially in the election process, is good thing. It gives voters more choices and brings important issues to the forefront.
Bruce Gjovig, chairman of the Northeast region for the GOP, says he thinks combining both the election process with the convention process is good for North Dakota.
“The active Republicans get first pick [at the convention], and the voters get second pick and decide if the party got it right. The party doesn't trump the voter, the voters trump the party.”
And that is the problem that those who prefer conventions over primaries have. They say it leaves the nominating process in the hands of voters who might not necessarily embrace the Republican platform.
John Trandem, GOP activist and former member of the State Executive Committee, says that the Primary vote “leaves the outcome in the hands of low information voters and Democratic party crossovers. The truth is, we don't want either one deciding the direction of the party.”
North Dakota's primary is an open primary. That means that one does not need to be Republican to weigh in on who should get the Republican nomination. State GOP leaders say that Democrat crossover voting is not a factor. But Eric Nygren, Republican Chairman of District 25, did an analysis of a 10-year voting pattern in past primaries. Looking at the Burgum/Stenehjem race, Nygren says that, while it's doubtful that crossover voting determined the winner, the statistics indicate that Democrat crossover votes definitely increased Burgum's lead from 4% to 12%.
Gjovig says that the only solution to crossover voting is to have voter registration, which he thinks is a non-starter for most North Dakotans.
There’s another faction within the GOP party that is pushing to eliminate primaries altogether. They say they feel it's counterproductive to encourage people to get involved and make their voices heard at the district level only to have their endorsements overridden in the June primary.
“It's a slap in the face to the grassroots,” says former GOP State Party chairman, Gary Emineth. “It disenfranchises all the people who turned out to the convention to make their voices heard.”
Chuck Walen, District 4 Chairman says, “The grass roots are the real party leadership. They are the ones that have a working relationship with their legislators and understand the concerns of the Republicans in their District.”
Bob Harms, former NDGOP state chairman and adviser to former Governor Ed Shafer, said he agrees. He says this push to bypass the conventions and emphasize the primary is fueled by “a monied class that is promoting the demise of the party.”
“This is not a Bastiat conspiracy,” Harms says. “This is a movement by the monied elite to disembowel the GOP by funding the campaigns of non-endorsed challengers in the Primary.”
Trandem said he worries that all this money being spent on challengers dilutes the party's ideals. He says the party needs to “compete in the arena of ideas, not by who has the most money.”
However, the convention process is not without its problems. An energetic and charismatic newcomer can turn out an unexpected number of supporters to the convention, causing surprising upsets in the endorsement.
“We may lose good people in this endorsement process,” says Harms, pointing to Representatives Kim Koppelman, R-Dis 13 and Mike Schatz, R-Dis 39, who lost their party's endorsements this year. While Schatz is challenging the endorsed candidates in the primary, Koppleman decided to retire from the legislature.
Harms says he is disappointed that Kopplemen, who was first elected to the House in 1996 and was the Speaker of the House in this last session, will not be in the 2023-2024 legislature. “But it's more important to have a good process,” Harms says.
Most voters are unaware of all these behind-the-scenes, intra-party squabbling, so it’s unlikely that it will have much impact on the June 2022 Primary. But it is a debate that is gaining traction and is sure to fuel more discussion both within the party and in the next legislative session.
