Year in Review: New leadership brought shifts and challenges for North Dakota in 2025
A change in leadership in Bismarck and Washington made for an unpredictable year in North Dakota, as state officials worked through major policy shifts, unexpected crises and a handful of hard‑won accomplishments.
North Dakota weathered its share of challenges in 2025, from a record federal government shutdown in the fall to the state’s first measles outbreak in nearly four decades. Even so, the year brought several notable successes.
The Legislature passed an historic expansion to the state’s primary residence tax credit in May, bumping what was offered to homeowners from $500 to $1,600. The property tax relief and reform bill also capped how much political subdivisions can raise property taxes annually to 3%. Though cities and counties grumbled about the law’s effects, it was widely popular with residents. The bill was championed by Gov. Kelly Armstrong, who announced it as his biggest priority going into his first session as governor.
“This bill provides real relief and real reform for taxpayers,” Armstrong said when House Bill 1176 passed the Legislature. “It’s responsible, affordable and durable. It creates Legacy Fund buy-in, and it’s the single most impactful thing we could do for North Dakota citizens this session.”
A tense legislative session
Lawmakers also approved bills to expand prison capacity amid ongoing shortages and to boost access to health care, including capping insulin at $25 a month and regulating the prior authorization process. Strides were also made on changes in education by banning cellphones in schools and passing a framework for the creation of charter schools in the state.
Legislators failed to reach an agreement on campaign finance reform, primary election reform or school vouchers. One voucher bill, creating Education Savings Accounts, passed but was vetoed by Armstrong, who said it fell short of meaningfully expanding school choice.
Culture war bills that dominated the 2021 and 2023 sessions took a back seat in 2025. Measures to require the Ten Commandments in classrooms, classify abortion as murder and define marriage strictly as between a man and a woman all failed. Armstrong also vetoed a hotly contested bill to restrict minors’ access to certain library materials, which opponents labeled a book‑ban measure.
The session was also shaped by a series of notable developments involving lawmakers and state affairs.
In February, Rep. Josh Christy, R-Fargo, died suddenly and was replaced by Rep. T.J. Brown, and Rep. Jim Kasper was hospitalized in late April when he suffered a brain bleed, which he survived. Shortly after the session, in May, Rep. Cynthia Schreiber-Beck, R-Wahpeton, died at her home.
Rep. Lori VanWinkle, R-Minot, received backlash in April from colleagues and the public when she took a weeklong family vacation during the concluding month of the legislative session and was paid for the time she was away.
Rep. Jeremy Olson, R-Arnegard, also became the subject of criticism. He stepped down in May after a harassment complaint was filed against him. The complaint was withdrawn after he resigned.
After a monthslong fight over Schreiber-Beck’s replacement that highlighted the tension between populists and moderates in the state Republican party, Rep. Kathy Skroch, R-Lidgerwood, in early September was chosen to succeed her.
The session ended with a misstep from Armstrong's office when he accidentally vetoed $35 million in funding for housing and homelessness programs. He only intended to eliminate a $150,000 passthrough grant for a Native American-focused organization to hire a homelessness liaison. After the governor sought an attorney general’s opinion, it was determined that the error could be remedied without legislative action.
Also following the session, the state faced its first measles outbreak since the 1980s. The outbreak lasted several months spanning late spring to mid-summer and resulted in 36 cases, three hospitalizations and no fatalities.
Federal uncertainty trickles down to North Dakota
Vice President JD Vance visited North Dakota on the Fourth of July for a vacation with his family, stopping briefly to extol the virtues of the recently passed One Big Beautiful Bill Act to local reporters. But regardless of the visit, and the North Dakota congressional delegation’s apparently close relationship with the new White House, the state was kept off balance by significant and erratic federal policy changes.
A prime example came in late May when the Trump administration rolled out a list of “sanctuary jurisdictions” -- a label used to describe governments that allegedly hinder federal immigration enforcement -- and it included seven North Dakota counties, potentially threatening federal funding for them. North Dakota county officials expressed outrage at their counties’ inclusion and said they had always worked diligently with federal officials. The Trump administration took down the list within three days, following national backlash.
Federal policy changes threatened education funding during the summer that was critical to afterschool programs and adult education in the state before the funding was ultimately released in the nick of time at the start of the 2025-26 school year.
FEMA and Public Broadcasting were a different story. North Dakota was forced to pick up the tab for multiple disaster mitigation projects in several communities across the state when the federal government cut roughly $20 million in funding for the projects in April. Months later, Congress cut funding to public broadcasting which resulted in a roughly 20% loss of funding for Prairie Public, the state’s only public broadcaster. Prairie Public was forced to let go of multiple staff members as a result. Members of North Dakota’s congressional delegation said they were confident Prairie Public would find a way to replace the lost funding.
“We'll stand on our own, but there are a lot of things that will hurt," Prairie Public President and CEO John Harris said.
The group that was potentially hit hardest by the federal government’s policy changes this year were farmers. Tariff policies “decimated” the soybean and other grain export markets, according to then-president of the North Dakota Farmers Union Mark Watne. Trump’s announcement that the U.S. would quadruple the amount of beef it imports from Argentina also angered local ranchers in October.
The Trump administration announced a $12 billion farm aid package in December, but farm groups in the state were skeptical it would address the long-term challenges facing North Dakota’s agricultural industry.
”We’re on the edge of a pretty serious crisis. If we see land values start to decline, and then if interest rates do creep up ... That would begin to seriously look similar to what we went through in other depressions/recessions in agriculture,” Watne said.
Congressional refusal to extend the Enhanced Affordable Care Act premium tax credits beyond the end of 2025 also threatens to harm farmers. Without the tax credits, those using the ACA Health Insurance Marketplace will see out-of-pocket costs increase an average of $500 per month. Many small business owners, farmers and ranchers purchase their health insurance through the ACA Health Insurance Marketplace, according to North Dakota Insurance Commissioner Jon Godfread, who called on Congress in October to extend the credits.
The tax credits became a major factor in the longest U.S. federal government shutdown, which started in October and ended in November. During the shutdown, federal workers and military service members in the state went without pay and 56,000 North Dakotans lost Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits.
To combat the impacts of the shutdown, Armstrong directed the state’s Health and Human Services Department to distribute $915,000 to the Great Plains Food Bank to ensure it had enough food to meet growing demand, and he spearheaded the creation of the Furloughed Federal Employee Relief Program, which offered short-term loans to those without a paycheck due to the shutdown.
Coinciding with the end of the shutdown, longtime North Dakota Superintendent of Public Instruction Kirsten Baesler stepped down from her position to take the job of assistant secretary for elementary and secondary education at the U.S. Department of Education.
Armstrong appointed West Fargo School District official Levi Bachmeier to succeed Baesler. Bachmeier will need to be elected in 2026 to serve the remaining two years of Baesler’s term. Bachmeier announced it is his goal to visit every school district in the state while serving as North Dakota’s education chief.
Also at the tail end of the year, a lawsuit came to light that accused the North Dakota Wonder Fund and the company that manages it -- O’Leary Ventures, owned by celebrity businessman Kevin O’Leary -- of fraud.
The lawsuit, combined with an attorney general’s opinion allowing the Retirement and Investment Office to withhold information about where nearly a quarter of the state’s Legacy Fund is invested, and growing scrutiny of an incentive structure that could award $1.2 million in bonuses to RIO employees based on the performance of outside money managers, set the stage for a broader debate over financial transparency in 2026.