MINOT, N.D. — Sandi Sanford, a culture warrior activist , is now the new chair of the North Dakota Republican Party.
Sanford has been an outspoken critic of Republican Gov. Doug Burgum.
During the 2022 election cycle, she backed an independent challenger to Republican Sen. John Hoeven.
She’s previously called for a primary challenge to Republican Congressman Kelly Armstrong over his vote to codify same-sex marriage in the federal statutes.
Under her leadership, the NDGOP may spend more time opposing Republicans than taking on Democrats.
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The consequences of Sanford’s election, at least as measured by dollars and cents, are already showing up.
State political parties are required to file financial disclosures with the Federal Election Commission. The most recent report from the NDGOP shows two major contribution refunds totaling $20,000.
That figure represents nearly 15% of what the party raised in 2020.
The refunds went to Gretchen Stenehjem, a long-time party activist who has served in local leadership roles, and her husband, Stephen Stenehjem, the CEO of First International Bank (which also just happens to be the bank the party uses).
Gretchen Stenehjem declined to comment on the reason for the refund, but I think we can make an educated guess. The takeover of the NDGOP by election deniers, anti-vaxxers, and other elements of the extreme right-wing isn’t unique to North Dakota.
It’s a growing national trend.
It’s happened in Michigan, Nebraska, and Arizona. In Georgia, Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, who drew the ire of disgraced former President Donald Trump for refusing to pressure his state’s officials to change results in the 2020 election, has chosen to skip his party’s state convention, and has set up his own campaign apparatus independent of the party.
With the new leadership of the North Dakota Republican Party seemingly intent on purging Republican elected officials deemed insufficiently ideological, it perhaps shouldn’t surprise us that more moderate contributors to the party would pull their funds.
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Where will the money go? One possibility is contributions directly to candidates, including some of those the current leadership of the NDGOP opposes. Or perhaps the traditional Republicans, or “normies,” could organize a political action committee that could serve as a landing place for the funds that would otherwise have gone to the party.
I’ve heard a lot of talk about some Republicans, feeling disenchanted by the new NDGOP leadership, doing just that, though I haven’t seen anything formal.
Whether that happens or not, this doesn’t portend good things for the financial health of the NDGOP. They’ve already lost 15% of what the party has raised so far this year, and I expect that future campaign finance filings will show more refunds to contributors.
What will be harder to measure are the contributions that would have happened but won’t now because of the party’s new leadership.
It’s another front to watch in a long-smoldering civil war in the North Dakota Republican Party that, with the election of Sanford as chair, has been fanned into a full-on conflagration.