Race Analysis

10/30/2012 -- The polls are moving away from Heitkamp here. This state is looking more and more like Connecticut and Massachusetts do for Republicans: Good candidates, but just not enough crossover voters to get it done in the end.

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For decades, this state was as solidly Republican as the South was Democratic. But the North Dakota Republican Party was a very different kind of Republican Party from the one we're accustomed to today. Its economic policies were dictated by the Non Partisan League, a socialist group that dominated politics in the Great Plains during the first half of the 20th century. And so, North Dakota produced Republican senators such as Gerald Nye, who were generally supportive of the New Deal but were also skeptical of foreign entanglements. The state-owned grain silos and bank grew out of the actions of this Republican Party.  But after the Roosevelt administration, such progressive impulses were largely confined to the Democratic Party, which began to grow in the state. 

For almost two decades, these impulses were exemplified by the state's two Democratic senators: Kent Conrad and Byron Dorgan, and the state's congressman, Earl Pomeroy. These Democrats were old-school populists, railing against Wall Street and excessive government borrowing. A fixture in North Dakota politics since the 1960s, Dorgan decided to call it a career in 2010, while voters turned out Pomeroy after two decades in the House.

Conrad might have been a favorite for re-election, but he chose not to chance it.  Congressman Rick Berg, who defeated Pomeroy last term, is the Republican nominee to replace him, while former Attorney General Heidi Heitekamp is the Democratic nominee.  While most analysts initially viewed Heitekamp as an underdog, polling has generally shown her doing well.