North Dakota
In battleground North Carolina, both parties struggle to turn out the youth vote • North Dakota Monitor
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — North Carolina Democratic Party Chair Anderson Clayton opened a pack of shiny stickers and passed them out to young volunteers getting ready to canvass for Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris.
The stickers have a tie-dye color scheme that reads: “Donald Trump is weird.”
It’s a reference to how Harris’ running mate, Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, quickly became an internet darling not only by calling Republican nominee Trump and the GOP’s fixation on banning books and abortion simply “weird,” but also Walz’s enthusiasm for the new Charli XCX album “Brat.” The pop singer has backed the Harris campaign, in a social media post where Charli XCX said, “kamala IS brat.”
Clayton, a Gen Zer who at 26 is the youngest state party chair in the country, knows how critical the youth vote will be not only in this election, but future ones.
“I feel like my job as a state party (chair) over the next election cycles, is to try to help educate our young people … because once they have the education aspect of it, they’re like, ‘I know who to vote for, I know who cares about my best interest,’” she said in an interview with States Newsroom.
But gaining the youth vote also means getting those voters to actually fill out ballots and overcome their dismay with the political process and, for Democrats, issues like the Hamas-Israel war. Some are ditching party affiliations entirely, political experts say. North Carolina, a battleground state, provides a microcosm in how partisans and others are trying to get young adults to the polls.
Matthew Trott, the president of the College Republicans at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said he’s focused on educating young conservatives about down-ballot candidates and making sure they take the final step.
“A lot of young people have been registered — it’s simply getting them to vote,” he said.
Fighting for a presidential win
Sporting an iconic lime green “brat” shirt that reads, “Demo(brat),” Clayton has used the “weird” stickers to entice college students to listen to her spiel about both the presidential and down-ballot candidates and voting this November, in hopes of turning the swing state of North Carolina blue.
It’s a feat that hasn’t been done since 2008, by President Barack Obama’s campaign.
Last presidential election, Trump carried the state by a 1.4-percentage-point margin, or about 75,000 votes.
The gap could be closed on those 75,000 votes, Clayton said, by pulling in various coalitions such as young and rural voters.
“I think that there are so many communities that were not tapped into in previous election cycles, and it’s just because they weren’t organized, it’s not that they weren’t there,” she said during a canvassing event hosted by the South Asian community in late September.
Her tour across the state to about 30 colleges aimed to register students to vote before Oct. 11, which was the last day to register online or by mail in order to vote for the upcoming election. In-person voter registration is allowed during early voting, from Oct. 17 until Nov. 2.
Clayton said she registered about 150 students to vote before the college tour was cut short after Hurricane Helene ravaged the western part of North Carolina.
As people in the state worked to recover, the North Carolina Republican Party and Republican National Committee sued North Carolina’s State Board of Elections after the board approved UNC-Chapel Hill’s request to allow students to use IDs on their mobile phones as a valid form of identification to register to vote.
A Wake County Superior Court Judge ruled in favor of UNC, but an appellate court reversed the decision, meaning UNC students can no longer use their mobile IDs to register to vote.
Big issues
Young voters are very practical, Clayton said.
She rattled off issues that students have told her they care about: access to abortion, the cost of living, a cap on rent and an increase in wages.
“I think people give young people not enough credit for how much they do care, and they would be interested if they had information presented to them in that way,” she said.
Harris has multiplied support among young voters compared to when President Joe Biden was still in the race, according to a national poll by the Institute of Politics at the Harvard Kennedy School that surveyed 18-to-29-year-olds across the country in September.
When the poll was conducted in the spring, Biden had a 13-point lead over Trump among likely voters. Harris in September had a 31-point lead among likely voters.
Clayton said young voters helped boost Harris after her ascension to the top of the ticket in July. Biden suspended his campaign following a disastrous debate performance that rattled Democrats.
“I don’t think that Kamala Harris’ approval ratings would have gone up so much without younger voters,” she said.
In the 2020 presidential election, Biden gained the support of 59% of voters ages 18 to 29, compared to 35% for Trump, according to an analysis of the 2020 electorate by Pew Research Center.
‘Very pessimistic’
However, the recent Harvard poll found that just 56% of youth said they would vote, which is down from 63% percent of young adults who said they would vote in September 2020.
Young voters, especially those still in college, have several barriers to casting ballots, said Courtney Juelich, an associate professor at the University of Wisconsin-Stout.
“Young people, regardless of generation, turn out at lower rates than older people, and a lot of that comes from just how complicated our election system is and how much is put on the individual,” she said. “We have young people having to figure it out on their own, and all these different state laws and many young people going to school in a different state. It just has these barriers to entry.”
Juelich added that for the first time, many young voters are identifying as independents. “They’re very pessimistic about the political process,” she said.
Democrats have also lost support and received heavy criticism from young voters due to the Israel-Hamas war that has led to a death toll of more than 41,000 Palestinians, according to the health ministry in Gaza. The conflict has produced massive campus-wide protests, opposing the war and calling for a cease-fire.
“They have a very different opinion on the Middle East than the older voting bloc in the Democratic Party and obviously the Republican Party, and that was one of the biggest concerns of Biden not … generating the enthusiasm when it comes to other policies, and then having that kind of mark against him, for young voters, which can absolutely swing elections,” Juelich said.
Additionally, the war in Gaza led to an Uncommitted movement, when Biden was still campaigning for reelection. The delegates that were sent to the DNC from that movement pushed for a Palestinian American to speak at the convention, but were denied by Democrats.
Door-knocking
For Eva Eapen, an 18-year-old political science sophomore at UNC-Chapel Hill, not getting involved in the upcoming election wasn’t an option.
Since the summer, she’s spent her weekends knocking on doors for North Carolina Asian Americans Together, giving nonpartisan information on polling locations and voter registration deadlines as well as information about candidates from the presidential ticket to local races.
“I think there’s a lot more at stake in this election in terms of, I don’t think it’s a policy election anymore, I think it’s literally an integrity of our democratic institutions’ election,” she said.
Eapen is a registered independent, and communications intern for Josh Stein, who is running for North Carolina governor as a Democrat.
Trott, the College Republican chief at UNC, is a 20-year-old political science and public policy junior. He said he’s working on reaching out to the traditional bases for College Republicans like religious organizations and Greek life.
He said some of the issues young Republicans are voting on include the economy and immigration.
“A lot of us are very much concerned with what we perceive as our open southern border and the threats that brings with it, and I know many of us are hopeful that with a second Trump presidency, he can take a firmer stance on that and hope to alleviate some of these problems,” Trott said.
Trott, who will be casting his first vote in a presidential election, said he’s worried about what the economy will look like when he graduates if Harris were to win the White House.
“A lot of us are very much concerned that the current economic environment once we do graduate, which, if Harris wins, would be during her tenure, would be incredibly unfavorable to us and make it a lot harder for us to get started with our lives,” he said.
A recent poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that the economy is a top issue for voters, with voters slightly more supportive of how Trump would handle the economy.
The Cook Political Report with Amy Walters on Oct. 2 rated Harris and Trump in a dead heat in North Carolina, at 49%.
Even though North Carolina is a battleground state, Trott thinks that Trump will easily carry the state.
“I think that he has been able to keep his base intact,” Trott said. “His supporters have not left him here.”
BRECKENRIDGE — Coaches, teammates, friends and family gathered in the south parking lot of Breckenridge High School for another state tournament sendoff.
Corbin Abner Lee / Wahpeton Daily News
This year, it was Troy Berndt taking the ceremonial convertible ride. He is headed to St. Michael-Albertville High School for the Minnesota Class A State Track and Field Meet on June 4-6.
Corbin Abner Lee / Wahpeton Daily News
He will be running in the third heat of the 400-meter prelims, scheduled for 4:52 p.m. June 4. There are seven athletes in each heat, 21 total, and nine will advance to the finals at 6:20 p.m. June 5.
The top two finishers in each heat advance, along with the next three best times. Berndt’s personal best time of 50.67 has him seeded 13th, but the 10th-, 11th- and 12th-seeded runners are less than five hundredths of a second ahead of him. The eighth- and ninth-seeded runners are also close, at 50.33 and 50.39, respectively.
Berndt dropped nearly seven-tenths of a second from his previous personal best at the Section 6A West Subsection Meet on May 21, running 51.35, and shaved another 0.68 seconds off at the Section 6A Championships on May 28 with a time of 50.67. If he keeps lowering his time, he will have a shot at reaching the podium against the best runners in Class A.
Corbin Abner Lee / Wahpeton Daily News
Results and photos will be available online immediately following the race June 4 and in the June 10 print edition of the Wahpeton Daily News.
Corbin Lee is a sports reporter for the Wahpeton Daily News and Richland County News-Monitor. Corbin can be reached by calling (701) 291-3551 or emailing corbin.lee@wahpetondailynews.com.
On this day in 1971, Rugby repeated as North Dakota’s high school sand greens golf champion behind medalist Dwight Stempson’s winning performance.
Here is the complete story as it appeared in the paper that day:
Rugby Repeats As Sand Greens Golf Champion
RUGBY, N. D. — Rugby repeated as North Dakota high school sand greens golf champion here Wednesday, posting a four-man total of 293 strokes for 18 holes.
Led by medalist Dwight Stempson’s medalist 36-35 — 71, the Panthers were eight strokes ahead of runnerup Stanley, which had a 301. Following were Garrison 311, Beulah 315, Leeds 322, Ashley 323, Bottineau 328, Pembina 329, Tioga 332, Parshall 341 and Hettinger 342.
Stempson and teammate Bruce Carlson each had one-under par 71s, but Carlson was unable to be at the regional and wasn’t qualified for individual honors.
Rounding out the Rugby totals were Delwin Wilson 40-37 — 77 and Dennett Hutchinson 35-39 — 74. Gary Kirchoffner, 41-39 — 80, was Rugby’s fifth entrant with the best four-of-five scores counted.
Runnerup Stanley was led by Steve Springan’s 34-38 — 72 and Joe Springan’s 36-38 — 74. Their two-man total of 146 strokes was good enough for the doubles title. Two strokes back with a 148 was the duo of Stempson and Wilson. Stan Saathoff and Mike Stepina of Garrison each had 76s for a 152 total and the Ashley combo of Steve Maier (76) and Dave Kretschmar (78) was fourth with a 154.
Stempson was the driving contest winner with a distance of 280 yards. Chris Knutson of Garrison headed the pitch and putt competition.
Kate Almquist is the social media manager for InForum. After working as an intern, she joined The Forum full time starting in January 2022. Readers can reach her at kalmquist@forumcomm.com.
Walhalla keeps the oldest buildings in North Dakota, fur-trade posts from the 1840s still standing near the Canadian line. Medora sits out in the Badlands, where a French aristocrat tried to build a beef empire in 1883. Garrison fishes one of the largest reservoirs in the country, and Jud has turned nearly every wall in town into a mural. The frontier era left marks across North Dakota that most of the Plains has paved over, and these ten towns still carry them. Each one holds a specific piece of the state’s history and geography.
Garrison
Garrison sits on the north shore of Lake Sakakawea, the reservoir the Garrison Dam holds back on the Missouri River and one of the largest reservoirs in the country. Anglers come year-round for walleye, northern pike, and chinook salmon, and the lake also draws boaters, campers, and shoreline hikers. In town, the open-air Heritage Park Museum preserves a one-room schoolhouse, a railroad depot, a country church, and a homesteader cabin from the turn of the last century. Fort Stevenson State Park, three miles southwest, marks the site of an 1860s military post with an interpretive guardhouse, a marina, a campground, and lakeside trails. Garrison leans into its self-declared title as the Walleye Capital of North Dakota with Wally the Walleye, a 26-foot fiberglass fish on Main Street.
Mayville
Mayville State University anchors this Red River Valley town in Traill County. The public four-year college opened in 1889 as one of the six original state normal schools authorized at North Dakota statehood, and its calendar still drives the town through Comet athletics, theater productions, and the annual Festival of Trees. Island Park, set along the Goose River where it runs through downtown, holds the town’s main recreation space with picnic areas, playgrounds, and a community pool. The volunteer-tended Rainbow Garden along the riverbank mixes themed plantings with folk-art sculptures. The Mayville Water Park runs its pool and slides from Memorial Day through Labor Day.
Lisbon
Lisbon grew up along the Sheyenne River in Ransom County as a Northern Pacific Railroad town, and its 1889 Opera House, now restored and on the National Register, still hosts theater and music. Brick storefronts from the same era line Main Street. Just south of town, the Sheyenne National Grassland protects 70,000 acres of tallgrass prairie, the largest publicly owned tallgrass prairie in the country, with trails open to hikers, riders, and limited hunting. Prairiewood Vineyard, about six miles out, grows cold-climate grapes and pours tastings on weekends.
Fort Ransom
Fewer than 100 people live in Fort Ransom year-round, deep in the wooded Sheyenne River Valley. Fort Ransom State Park preserves the site of an 1867 Army outpost built to guard settlers and the wagon route toward the Black Hills, and it now offers camping, paddling on the Sheyenne, and cross-country skiing. The park’s Sodbuster Days each September run horse-powered farming, threshing, and traditional-craft demonstrations, and the Sheyenne Valley Arts and Crafts Festival fills it over the Fourth of July weekend. The town anchors the Sheyenne River Valley Scenic Byway, a 63-mile route through some of the most varied terrain in the state.
Devils Lake
Devils Lake takes its name from the Dakota “Mni Wak’áŋ,” or Spirit Water, and sits beside the largest natural lake in North Dakota. Between 1993 and 2011, floodwaters more than doubled the lake, swelling it from roughly 70 square miles to over 200 and swallowing roads, farms, and woodland as it rose. Today it holds one of the most productive perch and walleye fisheries in the Upper Midwest. Graham’s Island State Park, on the western shore, is the main access point, with cabins, a campground, a swimming beach, and boat ramps. Fort Totten State Historic Site nearby preserves an 1867 military post with sixteen original buildings restored to tell its story through 1890.
Medora
Medora is the gateway to the south unit of Theodore Roosevelt National Park, set in the Badlands of western North Dakota. The Marquis de Mores, a French aristocrat, founded the town in 1883 and named it for his American wife, Medora von Hoffman; his Chateau de Mores hunting lodge still stands as a state historic site with the family’s original furnishings. The Maltese Cross Cabin, near the park visitor center, is the cabin Theodore Roosevelt used during his 1880s ranching years, the period that shaped his later conservation work. Each summer the Burning Hills Amphitheatre stages the Medora Musical, a Western-themed show running since 1965 in a natural bluff theater over the Badlands. The North Dakota Cowboy Hall of Fame keeps permanent exhibits on ranching, rodeo, and Indigenous horse culture.
Walhalla
Walhalla, founded in 1845 on the banks of the Pembina River, is among the oldest towns in North Dakota. The Kittson Trading Post, built by American Fur Company agent Norman Kittson, stands at the Walhalla State Historic Site and is often called the oldest building in the state; the nearby Gingras Trading Post, the 1840s home and store of Métis trader Antoine Blanc Gingras, holds an equal or older claim. Pembina Gorge State Recreation Area cuts the deepest canyon in North Dakota, carved by the Pembina River, with trails for hiking, biking, and ATVs. Frost Fire Mountain runs downhill skiing and snowboarding in winter and an outdoor theater season in summer.
Valley City
Valley City earns its nickname, the City of Bridges, from the eleven bridges that cross the Sheyenne River and its tributaries within the city limits. The Hi-Line Railroad Bridge, finished in 1908 and listed on the National Register, runs 3,860 feet across the valley and stands 162 feet above the water, one of the longest single-track railroad bridges in the country. The town sits at the eastern end of the 63-mile Sheyenne River Valley Scenic Byway, and Valley City State University, founded in 1890, keeps the local calendar busy with Vikings athletics and the annual Hi-Liner Days festival.
Jud
Jud holds fewer than 100 residents in LaMoure County and is named for Judson LaMoure, an early state legislator. Since the early 2000s, residents and visiting artists have painted murals across nearly every building in town, including the post office, the grain elevator, the fire hall, and several houses, turning the place into a walkable open-air gallery of prairie wildlife, rural scenes, and abstract patterns. The annual Jud Art Festival each summer brings in regional artists and live music. Most travelers come for the murals and the sight of an entire town organized around one creative project.
Bottineau
Bottineau sits a little over ten miles south of the Canadian border as the gateway to the Turtle Mountains. Its mascot, the 30-foot fiberglass Tommy the Turtle, went up in 1978 riding a 34-foot snowmobile and is billed as the world’s tallest turtle statue. Pride Dairy on Main Street is the last small-town creamery still operating in North Dakota, known for its Juneberry ice cream. Lake Metigoshe State Park, about fifteen miles north, offers boating, kayaking, fishing, and winter ice fishing. Bottineau Winter Park, the largest ski area in the state, runs ten runs across 200 vertical feet plus a tubing hill, and Dakota College at Bottineau, established in 1906, anchors the campus side of town.
Where The Frontier Still Shows
What these ten towns share is how much of the frontier they kept. The Missouri River and Lake Sakakawea shaped Garrison. The Sheyenne River Valley runs through Fort Ransom, Lisbon, and Valley City. The Pembina Gorge holds Walhalla on the Canadian border, the Badlands hold Medora, and the Turtle Mountains rise behind Bottineau. Each one still keeps its 19th-century buildings and the kind of small-town institutions that have closed almost everywhere else.
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