North Dakota could be heading toward its most competitive U.S. House primary since 2018

Feb. 17—GRAND FORKS — North Dakota could have the most competitive Republican primary for its U.S. House seat since 2018, when current Rep. Kelly Armstrong was elected to his first term.

In June, North Dakotans will choose which Republican candidate will appear on the November ballot and face presumed Democratic candidate

Trygve Hammer

, who so far is the lone Democrat to declare his interest in the seat. Since Armstrong won't be running for a fourth term and

instead is running for North Dakota governor

, the seat is open. Candidates have until April to file to be on the primary ballot.

So far, the House race has three Republican candidates:

Rick Becker

,

Tom Campbell

and

Julie Fedorchak

.

Armstrong has been in the House since his win in 2018, which came after the incumbent, Kevin Cramer,

decided to run for the Senate and went on to defeat incumbent Sen. Heidi Heitkamp

.

Cramer had announced he was going to seek reelection but then dropped out to run for the Senate. Cramer leaving the House race created a four-way primary between Armstrong, Campbell, Tiffany Abentroth and Paul Schaffner. Armstrong won the primary with 56% of the vote and went

on to win the general election in November, earning 66%

of the vote over Democratic candidate Mac Schneider.

Since then, Armstrong hasn't attracted serious competition for the seat. But now that there's no incumbent, the seat is open for yet another competitive primary. Before that, however, will be the NDGOP state convention in April, at which the party will choose who to endorse.

Only Campbell and Fedorchak are eligible to receive the NDGOP's endorsement. Becker, who ran as an independent against Sen. John Hoeven in 2022, isn't eligible under current party rules since he ran outside of Republican affiliation within the last three election cycles. However, a few politicians have won the Republican primary without the party's endorsement; examples include Cramer in 2012 for the U.S. House seat and Gov. Doug Burgum in 2016.

The only one who's run for the U.S. House seat before is Campbell, who ran in 2018 and

withdrew as he failed to get the NDGOP endorsement, which went to Armstrong

. Campbell still appeared on the ballot and placed second to Armstrong in the 2018 primary, with approximately 27% of the vote.

The Republican primary winner likely will face Hammer in November. North Dakota hasn't voted a Democrat into the U.S. House seat since Earl Pomeroy won in 2008, 16 years ago. Since then, the Republican candidate typically receives 54% to 68% of the vote in the general election. In the last three cycles, when Armstrong was the candidate, the Republican candidate received at least 60% of the vote.