Fargo, North Dakota has undoubtedly changed in recent decades thanks to Gov. Doug Burgham’s funding and family vision. Its main center, Broadway, is filled with restaurants, cafes, retailers and offices lovingly converted from old factories.
The parking lot turned into a public park. The warehouse that was saved from the wrecking ball is now home to North Dakota State University’s architecture and arts program. With a population of approximately 127,000 (16 percent of North Dakota’s total population), the largest city spanning hundreds of miles is growing in size and diversity with a liberal bent.
But Fargo is still the smallest town for a presidential campaign base, closer to Winnipeg, Canada than to Minneapolis, the closest big city to the United States. arthur village, Where Brugum grew up And where his family thrives and a hundred-year-old grain elevator dominates the flat landscape is even further removed from the political tide of the country. Even North Dakotans, who express their admiration for the governor’s wealth, business acumen and energy, are baffled by his sudden lofty political ambitions.
“He’s definitely, unlikely,” said Brad Moen, 69, of Jamestown, North Dakota, who has known Burgham for 60 years and traveled 160 miles for the president’s introduction on Wednesday. Told. “California, New York, Ohio, Florida, they’re big dogs, not North Dakota.”
Bergum, of course, has plans for the Republican nomination. It’s about avoiding culture wars and restoring the party’s pro-business economic message of low taxes, deregulation and entrepreneurship.
But he will first face off against other newcomers in the Republican field, which seems all but settled as of this week.
former vice president Mike Pence has piety and consistent conservatism To remind evangelical Christians what got them into politics in the first place. Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has this blatant punitiveism: The only candidate ready to face Donald J. Trump. Tim ScottThe South Carolina senator is hopeful and optimistic. Ron DeSantisthe Governor of Florida has Trumpism without Trump.
But all of these options will only cut Republican primary voters who don’t endorse Trump to ever more shreds, and the former president’s inviolable pie will continue to grow with each new candidate. it will look bigger.
So North Dakotans are asking the same questions as many other Americans. What do these candidates really want—a cabinet post in the second Trump administration, better public recognition for future presidential elections, and vanity after a long career? Many Republican voters see Pence as the ultimate traitor, erroneously believing that he may have turned down Trump’s victory in 2020. Christie’s blatant disdain for Trump has made him the enemy of many Republicans, and he is also viewed with suspicion by anti-Trump Republicans because of his loyalty to Trump.
No one knows about Mr. Brugham.
“I think he really thinks this is a way to promote North Dakota,” said Dustin Gorleylow, a conservative political commentator and activist in the state, of Bergum. Alternatively, “it might be eyeing a ministerial post,” he suggested.
Power utility executive and former state senator Tony S. Grindberg joins Mr. Bergum’s rally on Wednesday to discuss how the governor will push for a bizarre presidential campaign and prepare Bismarck for a third term. was considering whether to
“Technically we can do that,” he hopefully concluded.
Mr. Bergum’s path to the White House looks particularly steep. His story is out of the central cast. The small-town son lost his father when he was a teenager, and has since channeled his innate entrepreneurial spirit into companies such as chimney sweeps, business his software empire, and venture his capital. They are all within state boundaries. North Dakota.
Bergum’s billionaire status dates back to Microsoft’s 2001 acquisition of his company Great Plains Software in a $1.1 billion stock deal that made Bergum the richest man in the state of Dakota. became one of That much money would give him the power to win the election, but he can’t get the 40,000 individual contributions or 1 percent of the polls he needs to get to the Republican debate. Can not. It doesn’t make his name famous, and among some Republican supporters it may conjure up the fanatical image of Microsoft founder Bill Gates in many movies. The wildest far-right conspiracy theories.
Even North Dakotans don’t know what to make of their governor. They can squint to see the politicians they want to see.
Jonathan Melgard, 29, sees Bergum as the quintessence of bipartisan leadership, a talented entrepreneur and bridge builder, and will help build a progressive, forward-thinking Fargo. Inspiring enough to bring him back from Colorado where he worked at Aspen Labs. For voters like Melgard, Bergum has made the oil-rich state of North Dakota, including by backing an ambitious pipeline to bring carbon dioxide, produced as an undesirable by-product of ethanol, from around the Midwest to the United States. is an investor committed to making the company ‘carbon neutral’. Absorbent 300-foot-thick Bloom Creek sandstone at 7,000 feet below the surface in North Dakota.
“I’m not a Republican,” Melgard said. “I am not for conservative governance. I am for effective governance.”
Moen shrugged off all talk of carbon capture and electric vehicles and stuck to Brugum’s promise to strengthen the state’s abundant traditional energy sources, oil and coal.
Outside of Bergum’s event, Sherry Riley, 59, downplayed the governor’s bipartisan business propaganda and actually signed legislation banning transition care, abortion and discussion of LGBTQ issues in elementary schools. joined a small group of protesters determined to highlight .
“I know people who left because of him,” she says. “They leave en masse.”
Even Burgum doesn’t seem quite sure what to do with his records. He pushed innovation, pledging to diversify the state’s economy beyond agriculture and oil by expanding the tech sector and appealing to educated professionals for distance learning and urban prosperity.
Fargo shows that promise, but social policy will be Bergum’s legacy. In a recent interview with Joel Heidkamp, a popular radio host and brother of former Senator Heidi Heidi Heidkamp (Democrat), Mr. Burgham explained the six-week exception to rape and incest in the new anti-abortion law. admitted that it would not be possible for a woman to conceive in a very short period of time. He said it may not be immediately clear if she is pregnant, but if he had vetoed, Congress would have invalidated his statement. He said the same thing about the anti-LGBTQ rights bill, although he argued that most of it codified what was happening in the state.
“He was the man I most looked forward to being governor of my life,” said Earl Pomeroy, a Democrat who served as North Dakota’s leading congressman for 18 years before being swept away by the Republican surge. Pomeroy, who voted for Bulgham, said he had “unobtrusive leadership over the years from the governor’s office.” He added, “He’s kind of obsessed with a mad parliament.”
The governorship was Brugum’s first elected office. He spent his free time winning races in 2016 and has since spent free time consolidating his own endorsement.
In 2020, Bergum clashed with House Appropriations Committee Chairman Jeff Delzer, particularly over the governor’s prized project, the new Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library near the Bergum Ranch in Medora, North Dakota. After the conflict, Bergum funded the primary challenger. He is running as a “Trump Republican” against Delzer.
The challenger David Andal, died of Covid-19 before his name was removed from the ballot, and was elected. Local authorities have since re-elected Mr Delzer to the seat.
A carbon dioxide pipeline funded by oil and gas billionaire Harold Hamm has drawn the ire of activists on the right and left.
But Bulgham’s Wednesday rally was packed with elected officials, past and present.
“There are a lot of lawmakers who are openly afraid of what Doug Burgham will do to them,” Gorrielow said. “Mr Bergum has shown he’s not afraid to put his money out there, which is terrifying.”
Heidkamp takes Burgum’s presidential ambitions at face value. He acknowledged widespread speculation that the governor doesn’t really believe he can defeat Trump for the nomination and secure the White House. But Heitkamp considers Brugum a believer.
Former Democratic state senator Heidkamp said, “He’s a nerd and looks in the mirror and sees things that other people don’t see.” “When you shave your beard in the morning, you can see the president.”
