North Dakota
Port: Armstrong campaign releases polling showing 41-point lead over Miller
MINOT — The North Dakota Republican Party’s gubernatorial primary between Lt. Gov. Tammy Miller and U.S. Rep. Kelly Armstrong has been heated. Both candidates have spent furiously on promoting their campaigns, and at times
the rhetoric between the two has grown vicious.
But if polling just released to me by the Armstrong campaign is to be believed, the race isn’t particularly close. In a survey conducted by Guidant Polling & Strategy, which was conducted May 4-8, Armstrong has a commanding 41-point lead over Miller.
The survey shows Armstrong leading Miller among Republican primary voters 60% to 19%, with another 19% undecided. That lead remains consistent among voters aged 65+ (Armstrong 61%, Miller 19%), self-described conservative voters (Armstrong 62%, Miller 19%) and voters who say they have an established opinion of both candidates (Armstrong 64%, Miller 24%).
The poll suggests that voters view Armstrong far more favorably than they do Miller. Among likely Republican primary voters, Armstrong is viewed favorably by 69% of respondents, with just 19% having a negative view.
Miller, meanwhile, had mixed numbers. Just 32% of respondents said they view her favorably, 33% said they view her unfavorably, and after her campaign spent over $1.2 million on broadcast and cable television ads alone, 22% said they have no opinion of Miller.
“The last career politician who claimed to be up 40 points wound up losing in a landslide to Doug Burgum,” Miller spokesman Dawson Schefter told me in response to this poll. “Confident campaigns don’t release internal polls and spend hundreds of thousands of dollars falsely attacking their opponents. This is a clear attempt to spin the media from a candidate on the defensive about his record as a politician and trial lawyer. I’d put this poll in the trash where it belongs.”
To Schefter’s point, all polling released by a campaign should be taken with a grain of salt. Campaigns release polling data to serve their electoral agenda, not inform the public. We also don’t have any independent and publicly available polling to filter our perception of Armstrong’s numbers.
But that doesn’t mean these numbers are wrong. While I’m not sure I would have guessed that Armstrong’s lead was this prodigious, I have felt for some time that the congressman is winning. Armstrong’s poll strikes me as accurate. Or, at least, in the ballpark. The poll does jibe with information about other polls from independent sources that have been shared with me, though I wasn’t made privy to the specific details.
Jeremy Turley / Forum News Service
Gov. Doug Burgum, who is backing Miller’s campaign (though not quite as ardently as I had expected; more on that in a moment), might rebut these numbers by alluding, as Schefter did, to polling in the 2016 gubernatorial primary,
which showed him down 49 points
to Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem roughly a month after he announced his campaign. Burgum, of course, went on to win the primary in a landslide by nearly 21 points.
Burgum was fond of touting that poll during his long-shot presidential bid earlier this political cycle, but I’m not sure it’s an apt comparison for Miller. That poll was released in early March. It’s currently mid-May, with primary day looming on June 11. Also, remember that 2016 was the year of the outsider. It was the year Donald Trump stormed through the Republican primary to the White House. Burgum cast himself as a political outsider that cycle, and whatever the truth of the claim, the voters bought it. But that was eight years ago.
Miller’s campaign has seemed like a copy-and-paste of Burgum’s 2016 effort, right down to the buzzwords and much of the personnel. Only, it’s not 2016 anymore, and Miller, for all her personal achievements and compelling characteristics, isn’t Burgum.
The lazy analysis of Burgum’s political success assumes his money is the difference maker. And, don’t get me wrong, Burgum’s ability and willingness to spend gobs on his political agenda matters, but crediting his success to spending overlooks the fact that he’s always been a strong candidate. He’s warm and charismatic in person. He can work a room. He knows how to win people over on a personal level.
Burgum’s campaign strategies can be hit-and-miss. For example, he spent millions trying to sway legislative races as governor,
and the results were decidedly mixed.
But when Burgum himself is the candidate, when he’s personally engaged and not just spending money on ads and mailers, his success rate is much higher.
One thing we’ve learned about Miller during the campaign process is that she’s uncomfortable with in-person retail politics, and I think that’s cost her.
So, too, has Burgum’s absence on the campaign trail. We’ve all witnessed the spectacle of our current governor campaigning for a spot in a second Trump administration, be it as vice president or a cabinet position. That project has kept Burgum out of state a lot and left him with little time outside of gubernatorial duties to devote to Miller’s campaign.
In summary, how accurate is this poll? Though I wish we had publicly available independent polling corroborating the results, my gut tells me it’s fairly close to reality. Which isn’t to say that Miller can’t move the needle between now and June 11.
FARGO — A Moorhead man faces multiple charges after a run in with a North Dakota Highway Patrol trooper around 4:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Dec. 17.
Oscar Lee Jr., a 44-year-old Moorhead resident, was in a vehicle with children when a North Dakota Highway Patrol trooper made contact with him in a parking lot at 2535 23rd Ave. S., in Fargo, according to a release from the North Dakota Highway Patrol.
The trooper arrested Lee Jr. for driving under the influence. When Lee Jr. was placed under arrest, he “resisted” and kicked at officers, the release said. A trooper was struck several times and went to a nearby hospital to be treated for minor injuries.
Cass County Jail
Lee Jr. was arrested for driving under the influence and driving under revocation, the release said. He was also arrested for felon resisting arrest, assault on a peace officer and terrorizing.
Lee Jr. is being held in Cass County Jail, according to the release. No charges have officially been filed, according to North Dakota Court Records.
Lee Jr. pleaded guilty to felony terrorizing and reckless endangerment in 2022 and two separate misdemeanor DUI incidents in 2024.
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FARGO — Reading test scores are declining across the U.S., but North Dakota is working to reverse that trend.
The National Assessment of Educational Progress, also known as “The Nation’s Report Card,” reported a significant decline in U.S. reading scores between 2019 and 2022.
A statewide plan in North Dakota is focusing on key areas of development: Phonics, vocabulary, comprehension and oral reading fluency, or reading aloud.
It’s called “The Science of Reading in North Dakota.”
“COVID played a big role in this. We certainly went backwards after COVID, and that’s unfortunate, but I think we’re taking the correct steps to move forward now,” Nick Archuleta, president of North Dakota United, said. North Dakota United is the union of the North Dakota Education Association and the North Dakota Public Employees Association.
A recent survey by the National Literacy institute shows 21% of adults in the U.S are illiterate and 54% have a literacy rate below a sixth-grade level.
JAMESTOWN — State and local officials went on a tour of three businesses in Jamestown on Friday, Dec. 13, that highlighted recipients of the Automate ND Grant Program.
The tour included stops at Champ Industries USA Inc., Agri-Cover Inc. and Midmach.
Champ Industries received a $240,500 grant for an automated tool-loading brake press.
“This program helped a lot,” said Kyle Johnson, plant manager at Champ Industries. “Automation is definitely something that we were going towards, and this allowed us to take the first step much sooner than we anticipated.”
Agri-Cover received a nearly $283,000 grant for robot arms and autonomous carts. Midmach received $500,000 for three robotic welding cells.
The North Dakota Development Fund received $5 million in federal American Rescue Plan Act funding for a grant program during the 2023 legislative session. The program was developed in response to the workforce shortage in North Dakota, according to the North Dakota Department of Commerce’s website.
The one-time program made grants of up to $500,000 available to primary-sector certified businesses in North Dakota. The grants could not be more than 50% of the machinery, equipment or software being purchased.
“We’ve had legislators reach out to us with interest in advancing and sponsoring a bill to run it into the future and create something or at least do another one-time funding,” said David Lehman, advanced manufacturing business development manager for the state Commerce Department.
The Automate ND Grant Program had 42 applicants with $13 million in requests in a three-month application window from 21 communities, said Shayden Akason, deputy director of economic development and finance with the state Commerce Department. He said 18 applicants were funded from 13 communities.
“It just showed the type of demand and interest that companies have in automation to help their workforce challenges,” he said. “ … The quality of those applications, we probably would have funded another dozen of them. That’s how good they were and that’s how competitive the process was.”
The state needs about 30,000 to 40,000 people to fill its workforce gap, Lehman said. He said the manufacturing sector has around 26,000 to 29,000 employees in the state.
“If you took every graduating high school student and every graduating college student, we still wouldn’t fill our workforce gap in North Dakota,” he said.
John M. Steiner / The Jamestown Sun
Lehman said there are three ways for the state to dig itself out of the workforce issue — improving processes, focusing on Visa workers and legal immigration to increase workforce and automation.
“If you can’t, if you can’t improve your processes, you can’t get enough people, then you have to automate it,” he said.
Lehman said automation can be difficult in the short term because the state doesn’t have a strong infrastructure for it and the upfront costs are more expensive.
“But in the long term, so North Dakota, who has consistently been in the top three lowest unemployment states since the Bakken hit, has the opportunity,” he said. “So it’s painful now, but as we automate, it should make us more productive and better.”
Akason said workforce is the No. 1 challenge to expansion and economic development in North Dakota. He said the one-time Automate ND Grant Program was created to help alleviate the workforce shortage and keep manufacturers competitive so they can maintain or expand their market share.
Masaki Ova joined The Jamestown Sun in August 2021 as a reporter. He grew up on a farm near Pingree, N.D. He majored in communications at the University of Jamestown, N.D.
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