North Dakota
What caused a deadlock for the North Dakota Republican endorsement for US House?
FARGO — None of the Republican candidates for U.S. House expected the North Dakota Republican Party’s endorsement for their race to
end with a deadlock.
The unusual vote garnered ballots for three candidates on Saturday, April 6, at the state GOP convention in Fargo. Only two qualified for the nomination, but there was a twist.
On the first vote,
Public Service Commissioner Julie Fedorchak
topped
military veteran Alex Balazs, of Cando,
611-403. Fedorchak seemed to win, but voters wrote in former state
Rep. Rick Becker’s
name on 382 ballots. Also known as spoiled ballots, the write-ins counted toward the total vote and prevented the nominees from getting a majority.
No majority, no election, NDGOP Chair Sandi Sanford announced. Twice.
Even after Becker told delegates to vote for a nominee on the second go-around, neither could secure the nod. Balazs edged Fedorchak 605-599. With 13 ballots spoiled again for Becker, Balazs fell short of the majority.
Alyssa Goelzer/The Forum
Becker, Balazs and Fedorchak told The Forum after the vote that they were surprised no one could get a majority. Sensing the results wouldn’t change, Fedorchak said there was no point in making delegates stay for a third vote.
She decided to step up to the microphone and concede the nomination to Balazs.
“It was just clear to me, it was time to move,” Fedorchak said Monday in a phone interview with The Forum.
She called Becker’s successful attempt to spoil ballots a “self-serving” stunt. State GOP rules said the Bismarck man couldn’t seek the nomination because he ran as an independent against U.S. Sen. John Hoeven in 2022.
The morning of the vote, Becker asked delegates to vote for him, though he said in a text message that
he didn’t want Balazs to get attention.
In the months leading up to the convention, delegates told Becker they didn’t like their options for the nominee and that they would write his name in, he told The Forum on Tuesday. He said he warned them that would waste their ballots.
He also said he didn’t know the spoiled ballots would count toward the total and potentially prevent a majority.
“People were angry because they thought it was a stunt to spoil the convention,” he said. “It really wasn’t.”
Alyssa Goelzer/The Forum
In 2021, the North Dakota Republican Party put in place a rule that would ban anyone from seeking the GOP endorsement in any race for six years if they run as an independent or seek another party’s endorsement.
Becker said the rule didn’t specifically target him, but he said it prevents Republicans from having an option at the convention.
“It should not be there to protect incumbents,” he said of the rule, advocating that it should be changed.
Fedorchak said the rule should “absolutely not” be changed.
“Are you serving the Republican Party, or are you just trying to find the easiest path to victory?” she asked.
Becker broke the rules and then came to the convention to orchestrate a plan to spoil ballots, Fedorchak said. That threw the convention into chaos, she said.
“It served no purpose,” she said.
Alyssa Goelzer/The Forum
Becker said his voters felt disenfranchised by not being allowed to vote for him. All they wanted was a voice, and they got it by spoiling ballots, he said.
“We have significant support throughout the state, and I think the convention showed that,” he said.
Before the first vote, he said, he asked party leaders if he could speak after the first-round results were announced. In that speech, he thanked his supporters, said their voices were heard and encouraged them to vote for a qualified nominee instead of him on the second vote.
Fedorchak said Becker disenfranchised voters by running as an independent in the first place.
“Those kind of actions don’t belong in a person seeking one of the highest offices in the state,” she said. “Leaders are supposed to serve others, not be served.”
As a first-time candidate, Balazs said he knew the fight for the nomination was an uphill battle.
“I was ready for any process that came along — maybe not this one,” he said of the spoiled votes.
The vote should have been a clean one between the two nominees, Balazs said shortly after the vote. He didn’t agree with Becker’s tactics, though he said he respects Becker’s supporters wanting to vote for their preferred candidate.
“They clearly wanted a moment to speak,” he said.
When asked if the rule should change, he said that is up to the party. He said he wouldn’t change the rule unless his supporters wanted to. When rules are in place and candidates decide to break them, they have to live with the consequences, he said.
“If it was my kid, I’d say, ‘I’m not changing the rules now because you already knew that,’ ” Balazs said.
Alyssa Goelzer/The Forum
Heading into the June 11 primary, Balazs, Fedorchak and Becker face a
five-way race.
Former Miss America and Bismarck attorney Cara Mund joined the race as a Republican on Monday, as did
Williston resident Sharlet Mohr.
The winner will either face Trygve Hammer, whom the Democratic Party endorsed this weekend, or Roland Riemers, of Grand Forks. Riemers also joined the race on Monday.
Getting a party’s endorsement, especially from the controlling party in the state, gives Balazs an advantage. Seen largely as a newcomer, he can now tell voters he has the support of the party.
Balazs said he plans to travel as much as possible to meet with people and get his name known to the public. He said the candidates need to learn to follow the rules as they run their campaigns.
“I’m going to run that way up until the primary,” he said. “It’s going to be honest. … People have to decide who has the best character, who has the best platform and who they want to vote for.”
David Samson/The Forum
Becker said he was pleased with how many delegates voted for him. He said he feels good heading into the five-way race because three candidates, including himself, have name recognition.
“I think the grassroots base has actively been growing,” he said, calling the vote at the convention a success.
Fedorchak also is well-known in the state, along with Mund, who ran against U.S. Rep. Kelly Armstrong in 2022 as an independent.
Fedorchak said she is excited to get out to meet people, talk about her mission and get her message out to voters.
“I think we have strong momentum coming out of the convention,” she said.
BISMARCK — As an energy exporter blessed with abundant supply, North Dakota consistently ranks among the cheapest states in the country when it comes to residential, commercial and industrial electricity rates.
Exploding costs of transmission, the build out and replacement of transmission infrastructure and the increase in energy load have helped push residential electricity prices modestly higher in recent years, however.
Average residential per kilowatt-hour of power increased by nearly 30% in the state between 2020 and 2024.
A recent study by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory showed North Dakota actually had the largest decrease in average retail industrial and commercial electricity prices in the country over that span, with flat or slightly lower rates for residential users, when adjusted for inflation.
Most of the real cost rise is due to the increased expense of transmission as well as materials, build outs, generation and transportation needed to keep up with energy demand and to replace aging systems.
Take transformers for example: they cost 70-100% more now than five years ago, according to International Energy Agency data. Aluminum and copper wiring is up to 50% more costly. Labor costs have also increased by around 20-40%.
“Four or five years ago, it was $400,000 a mile to build a transmission line. Now it’s $2 million a mile,” said Josh Kramer, executive vice president and general manager at North Dakota Association of Rural Electric Cooperatives. “Generation used to cost about $800 a kilowatt. Now it’s $2,700 a kilowatt.”
The cost of nearly every input into the energy transmission and maintenance system rose, on average, as much as 50%, he said.
State Sen. Dale Patten, R-Watford City, said replacement and upgrade costs of infrastructure are also one key component, particularly to improve resilience against severe weather events in rural areas.
“A lot of the existing infrastructure is old, 50-, 60-, 70-years-old in some cases, and the cost of replacing it is not cheap,” said Patten, who chairs the Legislature’s Energy and Natural Resources Committee.
Contributed / North Dakota Association of Rural Electric Cooperatives
Population growth and shifts in that growth toward the main cities in the state are also a driver, he said.
“You have to build the infrastructure to support that population growth and that corresponding economic growth,” Patten said.
Another major driver is transmission costs.
“As we look at the regulated utilities when they come in for rate cases, it seems like one of the areas where their costs are exploding the most is transmission,” said Public Service Commission commissioner Randy Christmann. “Transmission costs are exploding.”
Christmann said some of the blame goes to build out of remote renewables projects in the wider region, as well as the closure of coal fired power plants around the county leading to increased load on North Dakota power providers as regional transmission organizations spread costs around.
In 2024, North Dakota exported around 32% of generated electricity and exported 85% of natural gas extracted, according to the Department of Commerce.
Adding large loads onto the grid across the country at the same time as all of these other cost increases has spiked energy prices in most other locations.
So far, North Dakota has dodged that for the most part, even as its lower electricity rates are attractive to industrial operations looking to add large loads in the system.
Large loads can include everything from operations like data centers, to oil refineries, to agricultural processing facilities and even the capital complex in Bismarck. Currently, there are 23 larger data centers in North Dakota.
When it comes to data centers, North Dakota has managed to add those large loads without jacking up electricity prices for consumers.
There are concerns about whether that can continue to be the case.
“I have seen them have very adverse impacts and very positive impacts,” said Christmann. “It depends on the details of the specific data center.”
Managing that going forward will be a challenge for the commission and legislators.
State Rep. Anna Novak, R-Hazen, is currently leading the Legislature’s interim Energy Development and Transmission Committee to study large loads such as data centers and try to find a way to balance attracting those projects without overburdening other electricity consumers.
“We need to strike a balance of making sure that we’re open for business, but that we have a strong vetting process,” Novak said. “I think that the vetting process is getting better.”
Besides cheaper electricity prices and available power, the policy and regulatory climate in the state is also attractive for tech companies looking to site a data center.
Chris Flynn / The Forum
Data centers are also attracted to North Dakota’s readily available water supply and cooler temperatures, which cut operating costs.
Novak said cost savings for data centers choosing to locate here can amount to the billions.
“We are certainly a desirable place to put a data center,” Novak said.
The most well-known data center in the state, Applied Digital’s facilities near Ellendale, has become a case study for how to add a large load while keeping the local impact minimal and also providing benefits across the state.
By tapping into stranded power that was not being adequately used and making the capital investments on that instead of passing it to the utilities, the project has been able to actually decrease electricity rates for Montana-Dakota Utilities consumers across the state.
“We had involvement in that, in making sure that this big additional load was not only going to just not be detrimental to customers, but actually be very beneficial.” Christmann. “Every single MDU customer in North Dakota is benefiting because of that facility on their electric rate.”
Contributed / North Dakota Association of Rural Electric Cooperatives
Darcy Neigum, vice president of electric supply for Montana-Dakota Utilities, said that customers saved around $70 last year because of the facility, and once it is fully built out, savings could come out to around $250 per year per customer.
“We’re very aware of the rates we’re charging to our customers and the rate impacts,” Neigum said. “The approach that we took (with the Ellendale facility) was to try to find some way to create value instead of just putting costs on customers.”
Insulating consumers from costs
Investor-owned utilities like MDU as well as electric cooperatives like Basin Electric Power and Minnkota are all trying to figure out how to manage large loads going forward.
Basin Electric adopted a large load program in June as a way to minimize rate impacts for cooperative members and reduce the risk of stranded assets that come with single projects looking for 50, 100 or more megawatts of power in the future. Minnkota Power Cooperative has also adopted a similar policy.
“So, when we have those inquiries coming in, whether it’s a large tech company or a large industrial load, we’re saying we want to serve you, but to do that you’re going to have to bear the costs associated with it,” Kramer said. “That goes for if they need to add more infrastructure or generation or engineering studies.”
MDU’s Neigum said the company doesn’t have a formal policy yet, but the uptick in interest in adding large loads may necessitate one.
“We do have a process we go through, and we’re kind of formalizing some of that, because there are just so many requests,” Neigum said.
One delicate aspect in all of this is putting into place policies that protect consumers or co-op members from additional costs without scaring quality projects away from the state.
Kramer said that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
“It’s probably helped separate the wheat from the chaff a bit,” Kramer said.
The North Dakota News Cooperative is a non-profit news organization providing reliable and independent reporting on issues and events that impact the lives of North Dakotans. The organization increases the public’s access to quality journalism and advances news literacy across the state. For more information about NDNC or to make a charitable contribution, please visit newscoopnd.org.
This story was originally published on NewsCoopND.org.
____________________________________
This story was written by one of our partner news agencies. Forum Communications Company uses content from agencies such as Reuters, Kaiser Health News, Tribune News Service and others to provide a wider range of news to our readers. Learn more about the news services FCC uses here.
BISMARCK, N.D. (KFYR) – With federal health care tax credits set to expire, rural hospitals in the state warn the ripple effect could strain their budgets while they are already operating on thin margins.
The Emergency Department at Jamestown Regional Medical Center is gearing up for more patients to come into their doors, uninsured, starting Jan. 1.
“We could be affected as early as January of the coming year. So it would happen very, very quickly. And nobody really knows what’s going to happen,” said Mike Delfs, the CEO of Jamestown Regional Medical Center.
Many rural residents are on the Affordable Care Act marketplace. Since premiums are predicted to spike significantly, some people will drop insurance, and they will be forced to go to the ER when they get sick. Hospitals cannot refuse emergency patients, and will have to shoulder the cost on thin margins.
“We would be looking at anticipated bad debt, but to what degree we don’t even know, and it is kind of scary to think about,” said Delfs.
Hospital leadership and staff say that the uncertainty is wearing on them, on top of the common stressors rural providers have to deal with.
As of now, they say their best bet is to hope that Congress can put aside partisan differences and come up with a solution.
“We have real people who are either going to lose their insurance or its going to get so expensive they literally can’t afford it. And the downstream effect of that is now you are endangering hospitals in rural locations just by their mere viability,” said Delfs.
According to hospital leadership, without congressional action in 2026, the end of the year could leave the hospital with nearly one million dollars in unpaid medical bills.
North Dakota’s Republican congressional delegation says the Rural Health Transformation Fund will greatly benefit rural hospitals and blames democrats for voting against their healthcare plan.
Copyright 2025 KFYR. All rights reserved.
North Dakota State Bison (8-2) at Pepperdine Waves (7-2)
Malibu, California; Tuesday, 5 p.m. EST
BOTTOM LINE: North Dakota State visits Pepperdine after Avery Koenen scored 22 points in North Dakota State’s 83-55 victory against the Eastern Illinois Panthers.
The Waves are 4-0 on their home court. Pepperdine is 1-0 when it turns the ball over less than its opponents and averages 18.2 turnovers per game.
The Bison are 3-0 on the road. North Dakota State scores 77.4 points and has outscored opponents by 15.3 points per game.
Pepperdine averages 8.1 made 3-pointers per game, 2.8 more made shots than the 5.3 per game North Dakota State gives up. North Dakota State averages 6.2 made 3-pointers per game this season, 1.1 fewer made shots on average than the 7.3 per game Pepperdine allows.
TOP PERFORMERS: Seleh Harmon averages 2.7 made 3-pointers per game for the Waves, scoring 10.4 points while shooting 44.4% from beyond the arc. Elli Guiney is shooting 47.3% and averaging 14.4 points.
Molly Lenz averages 1.7 made 3-pointers per game for the Bison, scoring 7.8 points while shooting 39.5% from beyond the arc. Koenen is averaging 18.2 points, 10 rebounds and 1.6 steals.
___
The Associated Press created this story using technology provided by Data Skrive and data from Sportradar.
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