Incumbent senator Heidi Heitkamp ran for reelection to a second term.[1] The candidate filing deadline was April 9, 2018, and the primary election was held on June 12, 2018.[2] U.S. Representative Kevin Cramer won the Republican primary to challenge Heitkamp, who ran unopposed in the Democratic primary.
On November 6, 2018, Cramer defeated Heitkamp in the general election, becoming the first Republican to win this seat since 1958. This marked the first time since 1960 that Republicans held both of North Dakota's Senate seats.
Background
Many observers cited Heitkamp as a vulnerable incumbent Democrat in 2018, as she balanced cooperation with her Democratic colleagues in the U.S. Senate with pleasing her constituents in deeply Republican North Dakota; Donald Trump won in North Dakota by about 36 points.[3] The race was expected to be extremely competitive and some projected it would be the most expensive race in North Dakota history.[4]
Voter ID law and Native Americans disenfranchisement
On October 9, 2018, the Supreme Court of the United States refused to overturn North Dakota's voter ID law, called HB 1369. This law requires voters to use an ID which lists a street address, and doesn't allow PO boxes as valid addresses. However, many Native American reservations don't use a conventional address system and their inhabitants tend to use PO boxes instead, making a large share of the IDs used by Native Americans invalid. Although both Natives and non-Natives are affected, Native Americans are disproportionately more likely to be affected by HB 1369, and the law has been criticized for disenfranchising Native Americans. The Republican-held state government of North Dakota argued that the law was created to prevent voter fraud, but has been accused of passing the law because Native Americans are likely to vote Democratic.
North Dakota secretary of stateAlvin Jaeger appealed the ruling to the Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, and requested a stay on Hovland's ruling. The Eighth Circuit initially rejected Jaeger's stay request, with the primary elections in June 2018 not being affected by HB 1369, but revised its opinion in September 2018 and stayed Hovland's ruling. The plaintiffs filed a motion to the Supreme Court, requesting that they take up the case, but this motion was denied. Consequently, Hovland's ruling remained inoperative and HB 1369 was effective for the November 2018 general elections, with many people without the right ID being unable to vote.[5][6][7][8]
Activists reacted to these suppression measures by educating voters, helping them get their identification cards updated, and giving them rides to the polls on election day. This backlash resulted in a Native American turnout that reached an unprecedented level in the election.[9]
Democratic-NPL primary
The Democratic-NPL Party held their state convention March 16 and 17, during which delegates voted to endorse Heitkamp for re-election. Although general election ballot access is actually controlled by a primary election, challenger Dustin Peyer did not challenge Heitkamp in the June 2018 primary.[10]
^"NRA Endorses Cramer for U.S. Senate in North Dakota". NRA-ILA. October 8, 2018. Archived from the original on October 8, 2018. On behalf of our nearly six million members across the country, the National Rifle Association Political Victory Fund (NRA-PVF) today endorsed Kevin Cramer for U.S. Senate in North Dakota.
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