North Dakota
Port: Out-of-state groups flood North Dakota House race with pro-Becker money
![Port: Out-of-state groups flood North Dakota House race with pro-Becker money](https://cdn.forumcomm.com/dims4/default/155e735/2147483647/strip/true/crop/5593x3259+0+0/resize/1829x1066!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fforum-communications-production-web.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com%2Fbrightspot%2F79%2Fef%2Fd6fd8bac4f36af8205068e960032%2F040624-n-ff-gopconvention-05.jpg)
MINOT — Weeks ago, U.S. House candidate
Rick Becker
was touting a more than $820,000 haul for his campaign in the Republican primary, though when financial disclosures were filed, it turned out that more than 66% of those funds were in the form of $550,000 in loans from the candidate himself.
Becker raised just $278,495.75 from contributors not named Rick Becker.
How much of his own money Becker would be willing to spend to win on June 11 has always been an open question. Judging by new ad buy numbers in the House race, the answer is “not much.”
Two affiliated Washington, D.C.-based groups — the Club for Growth and Win It Back PAC — have made enormous ad buys in the House race in support of Becker. Win It Back PAC has an ad out casting Becker
as a tough-guy border enforcer.
The Club for Growth is running an ad
attacking Becker’s opponent,
Julie Fedorchak,
for getting raises during her tenure on the Public Service Commission and for raising utility rates (for what it’s worth, state lawmakers set Fedorchak’s pay, not that nuance counts for much at this point in an election cycle).
According to public disclosures from broadcasters, those groups have made large ad buys, dwarfing what Becker’s campaign has spent. To date, Becker’s campaign has spent just $141,998 on ads, compared to $663,138 for Club for Growth and $249,717 for the Win It Back PAC. Both groups are based in Washington.
The Protect Freedom PAC, which is affiliated with Kentucky U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, has also spent $364,143 promoting Becker.
Keep in mind that these numbers don’t include non-broadcast television mediums, such as satellite or streaming.
Fedorchak’s campaign hasn’t been sitting on its hands. They’ve spent $451,179 so far. Meanwhile, the Brighter Future Alliance, a North Dakota-based committee run by longtime political consultant Pat Finken, has spent another $234,717 on ads attacking Becker.
That adds up to $685,896 in pro-Fedorchak/anti-Becker spending to date. Still, the pro-Becker/anti-Fedorchak spending is more than double, at over $1.4 million.
But campaign spending isn’t everything. Remember that in the 2018 election, then-incumbent U.S. Sen. Heidi Heitkamp outspent her challenger, current Sen. Kevin Cramer, four times over.
Her campaign quadrupled
what Cramer’s spent, and Heitkamp had about a $2 million advantage in spending by outside groups, too.
She went on to lose by 10 points.
Becker’s obstacle in this race has always been that he’s a deeply polarizing figure among North Dakota voters. Were this not a five-way race (former Miss America
Cara Mund
as well as newcomers
Alex Balazs
and Sharlet Mohr will also appear on the June ballot), I suspect that Becker wouldn’t be all that competitive.
Can all this spending overcome that disadvantage for Becker? Maybe!
Though it’s also a question of how long this spending advantage for Becker will last. I’m hearing rumblings that outside groups may be coming in to support Fedorchak and attack Becker as well.
The only thing that’s certain is that you and I are going to be seeing a lot of political ads in the coming weeks.
![](https://newspub.live/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/np-logo.png)
North Dakota
New interstate would cut through North Dakota
![New interstate would cut through North Dakota](https://assets.flagfamily.com/web/images/articles/pexels-jplenio-1133505-1718397328.jpg?4swnDgptaIz3XKEkTVoccw7TgTM6_H4g)
(Bismarck, ND) — Plans for a new interstate will bring the highway through the middle of North Dakota.
There’s no timetable for the construction of the proposed I-27 which would run from Texas to Canada.
Funds were allotted for the project by Congress in 2022.
Congressman Kelly Armstrong says giving farmers and energy producers more options to get their products to market will save on transportation costs.
North Dakota
The story of North Dakota's youngest 'vagrants' in 1923
![The story of North Dakota's youngest 'vagrants' in 1923](https://cdn.forumcomm.com/dims4/default/6648c55/2147483647/strip/true/crop/1024x768+0+0/resize/1421x1066!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Ffcc-cue-exports-brightspot.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com%2Fjamestownsun%2Fbinary%2FThe%20Jamestown%20Sun%20%2825%29_binary_4031211.jpg)
Stutsman County officials faced an unusual challenge with some young vagrants wandering the area in 1923.
The problem started on a Sunday when residents of the Windsor area brought two boys to Jamestown. The boys, ages 11 and 8, were found in the area and claimed they had been traveling alone for a “fortnight,” according to newspaper reports.
A fortnight is two weeks, in case you are not familiar with the time reference.
The children said they had been sleeping in hay and straw stacks in the fields and eating food begged at farmhouses along their route or snitched from vegetable garden plots.
Officials brought them to juvenile court, where Judge Coffey asked them how they had come to be traveling on their own.
According to the boys, they were traveling with their parents and five siblings by wagon across North Dakota headed toward Dickinson. Somewhere along the way, they had grown tired and stopped for a little nap. When they awoke, the wagon and their family were nowhere to be seen.
I suppose a family of seven children is difficult to keep track of, but it is no excuse to lose two of them along the way.
The children claimed they had tried to track the wagon but were never able to gain sight of their family.
According to newspaper articles, the children were placed under the Stutsman County sheriff’s authority while officials made attempts to locate their parents.
The newspaper coverage referred to the children as “North Dakota’s youngest vagrants” but also included some skepticism about their story. The article used the term “they said” often and presented no other information about the story.
It appears there were no follow-up articles about the children in any of the regional newspapers.
They may have been runaways, or they might have gotten lost by inattentive parents on a wagon trip across North Dakota
No matter how they came to be traveling along across North Dakota, they managed to spend a fortnight living off the land and surviving.
Author Keith Norman can be reached at
www.KeithNormanBooks.com
North Dakota
Jamestown Reservoir remains top North Dakota crappie fishery
![Jamestown Reservoir remains top North Dakota crappie fishery](https://cdn.forumcomm.com/dims4/default/b8d9651/2147483647/strip/true/crop/3008x2000+0+0/resize/1603x1066!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Ffcc-cue-exports-brightspot.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com%2Fgrandforksherald%2Fbinary%2FNDGF%20James%20River%20Reservoir%20crappie%202_binary_6567755.jpg)
Jamestown Reservoir is known as the top crappie fishery in North Dakota. In this week’s segment of “North Dakota Outdoors,” host Mike Anderson takes us there as fisheries crews conduct their annual survey. This year’s survey data indicated good numbers of 10.5- to 11-inch crappies in Jamestown Reservoir. Joining Anderson is Game and Fish fisheries supervisor BJ Kratz.
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