North Dakota is a Republican state, and by almost any measure it is one of the most Republican states in the country. The GOP holds the governorship, every statewide elected office, both U.S. Senate seats, the state’s lone U.S. House seat, and overwhelming supermajorities in both chambers of the legislature. The state has voted for the Republican presidential nominee in every election since 1968.1270toWin. North Dakota Presidential Voting History
How Republican Is It?
The margins are not close. In 2024, Donald Trump took roughly 67% of the vote in North Dakota to Kamala Harris’s 30.5%, a gap of more than 134,000 ballots.2North Dakota Secretary of State. 2024 Statewide Election Results The last Democratic presidential nominee to carry the state was Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964.3Statista. North Dakota Electoral Votes Since 1892 Across the state’s 34 presidential elections, it has voted Republican in 28.1270toWin. North Dakota Presidential Voting History
The Cook Partisan Voting Index rates North Dakota at R+18, meaning its electorate leans 18 points more Republican than the country as a whole.4Cook Political Report. North Dakota At-Large House Race Rating
Who Holds Office Now
Republican Kelly Armstrong took office as governor on December 15, 2024, with Republican Michelle Strinden as lieutenant governor.5Office of the Governor. Governor Kelly Armstrong6North Dakota Republican Party. Michelle Strinden Every other statewide elected position is also held by a Republican: attorney general, secretary of state, treasurer, auditor, insurance commissioner, agriculture commissioner, tax commissioner, superintendent of public instruction, and all three public service commissioners.7North Dakota Republican Party. Elected Officials
In Washington, Senators Kevin Cramer and John Hoeven are both Republicans.8U.S. Congress. Kevin Cramer The state’s at-large U.S. House seat is held by Republican Julie Fedorchak, who won in 2024 with about 69% of the vote and became the first woman to represent North Dakota in the House.9North Dakota Monitor. Fedorchak to Represent North Dakota in U.S. House
The Legislature
Republicans have one of the largest legislative supermajorities in the country. In the state House they hold 82 of 94 seats to the Democrats’ 11, with one vacancy. In the state Senate, the split is 42 Republicans to 5 Democrats.10National Conference of State Legislatures. State Partisan Composition Combined with the governorship, that gives Republicans unified control of state government.
How Long the Democratic Drought Has Lasted
The last Democrat to win any statewide race in North Dakota was Heidi Heitkamp, who narrowly captured a U.S. Senate seat in 2012 and lost her reelection bid in 2018.11U.S. Congress. Heidi Heitkamp Since she left office, no Democrat has held statewide office in the state.12C-SPAN. Heidi Heitkamp
That is a sharp break from a fairly recent era of Democratic strength in federal races. Quentin Burdick served 32 years in the U.S. Senate before dying in office in 1992, and Democrats Kent Conrad and Byron Dorgan held both of the state’s Senate seats simultaneously from 1992 until Dorgan retired in 2011.13U.S. Senate. North Dakota Senate Timeline14GovInfo. Kent Conrad Senate Document That competitive era is over.
Why There Are No Party Registration Numbers
If you go looking for the number of registered Republicans and Democrats in North Dakota, you won’t find one. North Dakota is the only state in the country that does not require voter registration; it abolished registration in 1951, and attempts to bring it back have failed.15North Dakota Secretary of State. Voting in North Dakota16Bipartisan Policy Center. How North Dakota Administers Elections Without Voter Registration Voters show up on Election Day with a valid ID listing a current residential address. Because no one registers, the state collects no party affiliation data.17U.S. Election Assistance Commission. North Dakota Voter Info Partisan lean in North Dakota can only be read off election results.
A History More Layered Than “Red State” Suggests
Today’s Republican dominance is real, but North Dakota’s political history is not a straight red line. The Nonpartisan League, founded in 1915 by organizer A.C. Townley, was a populist farmers’ movement that captured the Republican primary and built out a program of state-owned infrastructure, including the Bank of North Dakota, which opened in 1919 and still operates.18State Historical Society of North Dakota. The Nonpartisan League The League operated inside the GOP for decades before formally merging with the Democratic Party in 1956 to create the Democratic-Nonpartisan League Party, or Dem-NPL, that still exists.19North Dakota Democratic-NPL. About Our Party
That merger produced a genuinely competitive period. Democrat William Guy served as governor from 1961 to 1973, followed by Democrat Arthur Link from 1973 to 1981, giving the party 20 straight years in the governor’s office.20State Historical Society of North Dakota. Political Realignment The state’s underlying Republican tilt goes back to statehood in 1889, shaped in part by the fact that Republicans pushed for admission while congressional Democrats resisted, and by the Republican leanings of the state’s dominant Norwegian and German-from-Russia settler groups.21North Dakota Studies. Two-Party Political System
What Republican Control Means for Policy
With unified control, the policy agenda in North Dakota reflects conservative priorities. The state GOP platform backs a total ban on abortion, defines marriage as between one biological man and one biological woman, calls for protecting fossil fuel use and banning carbon-neutral mandates, and opposes government-mandated vaccinations or masking requirements.22North Dakota Republican Party. Platform and Rules
Voters do occasionally break from the party line, though the gaps are narrow. In 2024, a ballot measure to legalize recreational marijuana failed with about 52.5% voting no, a tighter margin than the state’s partisan splits would predict.23NBC News. 2024 Ballot Measures On the underlying question of which party runs the state, though, the answer is settled: North Dakota is a Republican state, and the current numbers give no signal that it is about to change.