Port: Democratic congressional candidates Hammer, Christiansen posted big fundraising numbers

Published by The forum | April 15, 2024

MINOT — The North Dakota Republican Party has no fewer than five candidates vying for the party's U.S. House nomination on the June ballot, but just one of those candidates will get a shot at taking on Democratic-NPL candidate Trygve Hammer.

And Hammer, it seems, will be no pushover. (Gadfly candidate Roland Riemers is challenging Hammer for the Democratic-NPL nomination, but will almost certainly fail to secure it.)

According to his just-filed April quarterly disclosure report, Hammer has raised an impressive $258,922 so far this election cycle, including $183,999.84 in unitemized small-dollar donations under $200.

I'm grading on a scale when I say that's impressive. It's impressive for a Democratic candidate campaigning in North Dakota.

In 2022, Mark Haugen, the Democratic-NPL's House candidate, and former Miss America Cara Mund, the independent candidate who was the de facto Democratic-NPL candidate after Haugen was pushed out of the race, combined to raise less than $200,000 for the entire cycle.

In 2020, Democratic House candidate Zach Raknerud raised less than $30,000.

The last time the Democrats had a candidate who raised money at the scale Hammer has in 2024 was 2018, when former state lawmaker Mac Schneider (currently serving a term as North Dakota U.S. attorney, to which he was appointed by President Joe Biden) raised over $761,000 for the entire cycle. Even there, Hammer compares favorably. For his April 2018 quarterly report, Schneider raised just less than $129,000, or about half what Hammer has.

Democrats are right to feel some enthusiasm for Hammer's campaign. Republicans, meanwhile, should be cautious. It seems Hammer, a Marine veteran with a blue-collar resume that includes work in the oil fields, will be no pushover.

Democratic Senate candidate Katrina Christiansen also put up a big number. She's running against Republican incumbent Kevin Cramer, who is not opposed in the primary. She also ran against Sen. John Hoeven in 2022, raising just less than $113,000 for the entire cycle.

She has raised $279,172 in the April quarterly period, for a total of $463,283 so far this cycle. More than half, or $241,143.57, have come from small-dollar donors.

I'd be remiss if I didn't point out that the Republican candidates will almost certainly outraise Hammer and Christiansen.

Former lawmaker Rick Becker, as one example, has claimed to have raised over $820,000 so far, though as I write this, his financial disclosure isn't available yet, and it's not clear how much of that total came from contributors and how much he loaned his own campaign.

In the 2022 cycle, when Becker challenged incumbent Republican Sen. John Hoeven, Becker loaned his campaign $500,000, and it wouldn't surprise me if he'd done something similar this cycle.

Public Service Commissioner Julie Fedorchak, too, will likely have no problem out-raising Hammer. Even Mund, who has decided to run as a Republican this cycle, can likely match Hammer's numbers.

Meanwhile, Cramer, in the Senate race, hasn't filed his April quarterly yet, but he ended 2023 with more than $2.4 million in cash on hand.

Hammer, though he hasn't raised as much as Christiansen, is probably in a better position than his fellow Democrat, if only because he's not taking on a popular incumbent who is running unopposed in the primary. Hammer's eventual opponent will have just been through the wringer of a five-way primary, and will likely have spent a lot of money just to get to the general election.

It's a real opportunity for the Democrats.

These fundraising reports for Hammer and Christiansen show that North Dakota's Democrats have something they've not had in a while.

A pulse.

—by Rob Port