North Dakota Republican leaders warn convention exposed deep party divisions
North Dakota Republican leaders sharply criticized the party's weekend convention in Minot, warning that a sparsely attended, combative gathering laid bare deepening fractures within the GOP and risked further splintering a state party already strained by internal power struggles.
The convention was significantly smaller than the past two conventions, with only 707 delegates recorded Saturday and a vote count showing 609 on Sunday. In 2024, 1,470 delegates attended the convention, and in 2022, 2,321 delegates attended.
All statewide incumbent candidates as well as most legislative leaders chose not to attend the convention, citing political gamesmanship and divisive rhetoric at previous conventions amid a growing rift between populist and mainstream members of the party.
The party endorsed Alex Balazs, a military veteran and former State Department employee running for Congress, and Deven Styczynski, a candidate for the North Dakota Public Service Commission, over the the weekend.
With no candidates present for the remaining statewide offices on the November ballot, NDGOP Chair Matthew Simon declared that the party would make no endorsement.
Candidates can get on North Dakota's June primary election ballot two ways -- getting the party's endorsement, or collecting signatures and going straight to the primary. Incumbent Republican U.S. Rep. Julie Fedorchak this year is going the signatures route.
The party also adopted 14 resolutions Sunday to clarify its platform. Notably, one called for the replacement of the current primary system with one that allows political parties to directly nominate candidates to the general election ballot. The idea was espoused by several speakers during the convention, and Sen. Chuck Walen, R-New Town, pledged to bring forward a bill during the 2027 Legislature to implement the change.
Gov. Kelly Armstrong told reporters he does not support the proposed change. He said voters, not back rooms, should decide who their candidates are.
"I think this is (happening) because everybody has the attention span of a fruit fly. If there were only closed primaries and caucus systems in 2016, Donald Trump would not have been president," Armstrong said. "If you go into this isolated thing, you will lose more general elections because the activists will control what happens instead of the public as a whole."
Can the party decide who calls themselves a Republican?
The most discussed and controversial action taken by the party over the weekend was not on the agenda.
District 2 Chair Jerol Gohrick made a motion Saturday to remove the "Republican brand" from candidates who had not attended the convention — essentially seeking to strip them of their status as Republicans.
The motion laid bare the stark political divide in the party that has been growing in recent election cycles between establishment candidates and their supporters and an insurgent populist group that gained control of the state party last summer.
The motion led to hours of often emotional debate from both sides and ultimately passed in a 313-312 vote. An attempt to reconsider it on Sunday failed.
Rep. Bernie Satrom, R-Jamestown, called the passage of the motion a "nail in the coffin of the NDGOP."
Those who supported it said it sent a clear message to candidates who did not attend.
"Play stupid games, win stupid prizes," District 2 delegate Kevin Hunter said.
Those who opposed it said it unnecessarily deepened the divide in the party and argued the party does not get to decide who is and who is not a Republican.
"These are our friends," District 46 delegate Crystal Dueker said. "Please, don't do this."
Some delegates, including Rep. Jared Hendrix, R-West Fargo, urged the convention to reconsider, warning that the motion was too vague for the NDGOP executive board to effectively act on.
Secretary of State Michael Howe told the Tribune on Monday that even if he were asked by the party to remove a candidate's party affiliation from the ballot, he is bound by state election law, which does not allow him to make that change. Under state law, a candidate who collects the requisite 300 signatures to appear on the primary ballot may self-identify what party they represent.
Armstrong said that even with the motion effectively cutting off party support to some candidates, it is not a serious loss for them. He said he received "zero" support from the party when he ran in his 2024 primary against Tammy Miller, even though he had the party's endorsement.
It was unclear whether the motion was meant to apply only to statewide candidates or also to legislative candidates who had missed the convention.
'Unnecessary divisiveness' at the convention
Senate Majority Leader David Hogue, R-Minot, said the motion was another example of the "unnecessary divisiveness" at the convention, which concerned him.
"My concern is the same concern Abe Lincoln had," Hogue said. "A house divided against itself cannot stand, and we have entirely too many people focused on dividing us. That's the bottom line."
It is natural for a party to turn against itself when it controls the Legislature and all statewide offices, and faces effectively no opposition party, according to Hogue.
Sen. Janne Myrdal, R-Edinburg, said the party was not focused on finding common ground but on its internal divisions.
"We're going to have issues until Christ comes back because we're broken people," Myrdal said. "Every session, we're going to have issues. But we're doing so well. So today we could be in here celebrating some of that, and yet we allow speakers to come in, all they do is bash Republicans."
Several speakers at the convention lauded the distillation of the party and its ideas.
"Sometimes you have to get smaller to get better, and that might have been what just happened here, frankly," radio talk show host and author Steve Deace said in his keynote address.
He said the "big tent" Republican ideology — which encourages the party to embrace members with a wide range of beliefs — produces a party whose members do not govern well together. He encouraged delegates to establish a set of "non-negotiables" as the foundation of the party.
Once that foundation was set, Deace said, delegates should reach out and engage establishment figures.
Balazs made a similar argument. He said establishment candidates who chose not to attend the convention were welcome within the populist faction of the party.
"We are welcoming them to come over and stand with us," Balazs said. "You're going to have to put God first. You're going to have to put your principles first — in the Constitution — put the rest aside, and we will get there."
Much of the rhetoric during the convention centered on religious themes. Myrdal in an interview with the Tribune pointed out her well-known Christian values and anti-abortion position but also criticized the notion that all Republicans should be forced to hold certain beliefs. "We are not a theocracy," she said.
Satrom said it was not the establishment candidates who had left the party — it was the other way around.
"I personally believe I'm a real Republican, and I'm not sure what these folks are," he said. "I think this activist slash libertarian, something, has basically taken over the (party) and rather than having rational discussions based on facts and data, what we've got is a situation where people are basing it on anger and emotion."
He said he feared that if the activist group continued to attack the party's candidates, "serious, mature" people would stop running as Republicans and Democrats would start winning.
"And rightly so," he said.
Fedorchak said the primary election would prove out who North Dakota Republican voters align with.
"It's disappointing to see a few individuals try to claim they represent a larger party, when the larger party has made their wishes known at the ballot box and will do so again in June," she said.
The Tribune was told by an NDGOP official that Simon was unavailable for comment both days of the convention, and no other members of the party's executive committee were made available for comment.
Unlike at previous conventions, the Tribune and other media organizations were not allowed on the convention floor, nor in the vendor market where candidates had set up booths.
The NDGOP did not immediately reply to a request for comment Monday.