Burgum responds to gift card criticism after qualifying for August debate

NORTH DAKOTA — Per requirements from the Republican Party, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum needed 40,000 individual donors and to poll at least 1% to qualify for the first GOP debate on Aug. 23.

Making sparks in places like New Hampshire, with a recent poll putting Burgum at 6%, the governor’s name seems to be finding its way outside the prairie.

“We’re innovation, not regulation,” Burgum said in a WDAY News interview on Tuesday, July 25. “We’re selling energy to our friends and allies. We’ve got an important role to play on national security.”

Through what he is calling a grassroots campaign, Burgum came into this race with a lot of capital, partly thanks to his days in the tech industry. While striving to reach the requirement of 40,000 individual donors, he started giving away money. Anyone who donates a dollar to his campaign gets a $20 gift card.

WDAY News asked Burgum what he thinks about any criticism to his gift card strategy.

“It’s all just goofy noise, it’s not a signal,” he responded. “These are all clubhouse rules in the sense that they’re created by political parties. It’s not law, it’s not anything like that. It’s just a requirement.”

WDAY News asked one of Burgum’s campaign managers how much they spent on the gift cards and how many were given out. They could only say that they hit the 40,000 requirement and still have some gift cards left.

Burgum said the money he spent on gift cards is roughly a fifth of the cost to hire a political fund-raising firm.

“Requirements favor those who have previously held national office, it favors people that come from really big states, it favors people who have been pundits,” Burgum said. “So when people criticize me for being entrepreneurial, I just kind of think that’s funny because (…) We need more of that, not less of that, particularly when we’re talking about making government more efficient.”

Minnesota State University Moorhead political science professor Barb Headrick believes Burgum had to spend his way to the debate stage. Though he still has a formidable challenger in former President Donald Trump, who is leading the polls by a very wide margin, Trump has indicated he will not take part in the debates.

“As long as voters are willing to stick with him and nothing forces him from the race, then everybody else is basically playing on a position of being there in case something does,” Headrick said.

Burgum beat former Vice President Mike Pence to meeting the debate requirements. Pence still has to reach 40,000 donors.