​Where were the young Fargo voters?

Last week we had a primary election in the state that also included an important Fargo city election. Republicans now have a majority on the Fargo City Commission in what has reliably been a progressive city, the most progressive city in the state.

But when you have 11 candidates as we saw in this last City Commission race and a lot of candidates in the two previous races, which also saw Republicans win, fractured coalitions in the Democratic party can lead to Republicans getting elected on the city-wide ballot. Another big factor may have been the lack of young people turning out to vote in Fargo.

KFGO reported on technology that Cass County Auditor Mike Montplaisir has, which is able to break down who voted by what age. The lowest numbers by far were from the 18-24 demographic. In fact, both 34 and under and 75+ featured the lowest numbers. 18-24 had a little over 1,000 voters. The group with the largest number of voters, ages 55-64, had 6,000 voters locally.

Why is this significant? Well, just a week before, we saw in the North Dakota Democratic Party caucus, at least anecdotally looking around the room in the district I voted in, tons of young people were in the room, outnumbering older voters. The school I voted in for the caucus served three districts, and it was the same in all three. Bernie Sanders won by large numbers, no doubt fueled by all the young people who showed up to vote.

While that’s great and I am happy North Dakota got to have its say in the race for president, let’s face it, for all intents and purposes, by the time North Dakota Democrats voted in their caucus, the race was decided. The Associated Press had called the race for Hillary Clinton the day before, a factor which depressed turnout in California’s primary, and Bernie faced many challenges in surpassing her.

So why didn’t these young people show up in a race that mattered more, where hundreds of votes could have made the difference?

It’s hard to say, some may blame the Voter ID law which requires your ID to match where you lived for the last 30 days and is necessary in the primary, because it’s run by the state, but not in the caucus, because it was run by the Democratic-NPL party.

College students seem to be the most affected by the law. It also could just be lethargy, not taking the time to learn about local and legislative candidates who aren’t all over your TV or computer screens, but some of whom are just as progressive as Bernie Sanders. The frustrating part is their presence would’ve mattered so much more in these local races because the numbers separating winners were so much lower. And maybe had they voted, we wouldn’t have a conservative majority on the Fargo City Commission.

The fact that two candidates won the race with 16 and 15% of the vote has spurred some to call for runoff elections in the city when there is not a clear majority. The problem with that is you think it’s hard to get a lot of people to vote in a city election during a primary? How about a runoff election a week later? Good luck with that. Sure, you may end up with a higher percentage of the vote for the winning candidates, but of how many voters, since runoff turnouts are smaller?

I hope this changes in the general election in November. I know that many young people and people in general are not too enthused about the prospect of a Clinton vs. Trump race, which will not motivate them to run out to the polls.

But the races where they can have more impact are local legislative races. Remember those legislators who passed draconian abortion laws whose purpose was to challenge Roe vs. Wade and close the only abortion clinic in the state here in Fargo and waste a lot of taxpayer dollars in legal challenges we would eventually lose? Well some of them are still in office in Fargo and might be in your district. Some of them are even in districts populated by young people around places like NDSU.

So while you may not exactly be excited about voting for Clinton or Trump, it’s not the only race on the November ballot and your vote in a tight race with low numbers, where hundreds of votes can separate the winners and losers, can make the difference in those legislative races. A large proportion of young people deciding to vote in higher numbers than normal could swing those races.

Vote in races where your vote will have an impact: city and legislative elections. You missed your chance with the city race. Make up for it with the legislative ones in November.

No one, certainly not me, could have predicted the landslide victory that Doug Burgum would receive in the race to be the Republican nominee for governor in November. For all those still bellyaching about him continuing on to the primary after losing the party’s endorsement in March, don’t forget that the current U.S. Congressman Kevin Cramer did the exact same thing.

For me, looking back at his victory and how large it was, tells me one thing: Burgum didn’t need to endorse Donald Trump and had he not, even just said nothing, he probably would have won by a higher margin. He was trying to prove his conservative credentials while weaving a coalition of Democrats and conservatives upset with the status quo. He did it well, don’t get me wrong. But that was the decision that made it impossible for me to pull the trigger on his name.

I guarantee, those western NoDakers he was trying to impress could care less about his endorsement of Trump. They cared about him bringing change to state government. And it’s not like his opponent gave a ringing endorsement to Trump either.

Here’s hoping with the mandate Burgum now has, that he backs away from that endorsement and the many foolish things Trump has said, which even Congressional leaders in DC have done. Doug Burgum is not Donald Trump and doesn’t believe a lot of the same things. But he needs to make that clear if he wants be the governor of all North Dakotans, especially minorities and women.