Doug Burgum pitched NH voters on energy, addiction solutions. Here's how they would impact the nation.

North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum is holding out hope voters in early primary states like Iowa and New Hampshire could propel his longshot bid for president.

“New Hampshire picks presidents, not pollsters and pundits,” Burgum told a sparse crowd of Granite State voters at a town hall hosted by the USA TODAY Network last week, referencing the impact of the state’s traditional first-in-the-nation primary.

Five out of seven Republican nominees since 1976 won the New Hampshire primary, including former Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and Donald Trump.

“You’re the tip of the spear of America actually making a decision of who’s the person for this moment,” Burgum said.

So far, however, the governor has failed to make a mark on voters in the state. A recent Suffolk University/Boston Globe/USA TODAY New Hampshire poll found Burgum tied with former Vice President Mike Pence and ex-Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson at 1%.

The story is much the same around the country. A Morning Consult survey conducted between Oct. 13-15 found Burgum in last place in the race, behind Hutchinson and South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott.

With just three months to go until voters begin casting their ballots in primaries, here’s a look at the appeals Burgum made to New Hampshire voters that could impact Americans across the country.

Prioritizing addiction and mental health

The addiction and mental health epidemic is deeply personal for Burgum and is among the top priorities he would tackle as president, he told voters at the town hall.

“For America to reach its full potential, we’ve got to have a healthy population," Burgum said.

First and foremost, he believes addiction is the root cause of problems plaguing American communities, from homelessness to crime, and must be treated as a health care issue.

That’s why he supports rethinking reimbursement systems for mental health care and is calling on the private sector to get involved in funding solutions for substance use disorders.

Burgum's drive to address addiction across the country has also bled into his approach to the criminal justice system. In North Dakota, his administration has started treating prisons more like health care facilities that provide some incarcerated individuals the substance use disorder treatment they need to rejoin their communities.

“This is not a Republican problem. It's not a Democrat problem. Addiction doesn't discriminate,” Burgum told town hall attendees. “If there’s one bipartisan issue, it’s that we have to address this.”

That perspective is largely shaped by his experience supporting his wife, Katherine Burgum, who fought alcohol abuse for close to three decades and has been in recovery for the last two. The North Dakota first lady started the nonprofit Recovery Reinvented, which aims to end stigma around addiction in the state.

Increasing U.S. energy independence

As governor of the third-largest crude oil-producing state, energy is another one of Burgum’s favorite topics, a focus on display in New Hampshire, where he continued to link the issue to national security.

Repeating statements he’s made previously on the campaign trail, the Arthur, North Dakota, native derided what he described as a “full-on assault of liquid fuels in this country” by the Biden administration and criticized the movement toward electric vehicles for increasing U.S. reliance on Chinese-made car batteries.

To ensure U.S. energy independence, he contended that the U.S. Bureau of Land Management should allow energy-related activities, such as rare earth metal mining and oil and natural gas drilling, on the over 240 million acres of land it administers.

“That land belongs to all of you. It does not belong to a few unelected bureaucrats that are coming up with rules saying that it can’t be touched," Burgum said in New Hampshire.

The governor previously opposed an effort by Biden to prevent oil and gas leasing on public lands that was suspended earlier this year by a U.S. District court.

Creating a path toward carbon neutrality

However, Burgum cautioned that his energy stances shouldn’t be mistaken as anti-environmentalist.

“If you care about the environment, then we should be supporting energy policies where we produce every drop of energy we can in the United States,” he insisted.

In particular, the governor touted North Dakota’s pledge to become carbon-neutral by 2030 and argued that the state would reach the goal not with mandates or regulations, but by leaning on renewable energy sources and innovations to decarbonize fossil fuels.

If elected president, Burgum suggested he would roll back regulations in the oil and gas industries but still support clean energy projects. For instance, he vowed to eliminate government permitting requirements he said were preventing a natural gas pipeline from being constructed between Pennsylvania and New England.

This article originally appeared on Aberdeen News: Addiction solutions, climate goals: Doug Burgum makes his pitch in NH