North Dakota GOP senator faces Democratic challenger making her second bid for U.S. Senate

BISMARCK, ND — A Republican U.S. senator from North Dakota who wrested the seat from a Democrat in 2018 faces a challenge Tuesday from another Democrat seeking to become her second Senate candidate.

U.S. Sen. Kevin Cramer is confronting Democrat Katrina Christiansen in his bid for reelection in the conservative Great Plains state with a majority of Republican voters.

A former member of the U.S. House of Representatives and state utilities regulator, Cramer, 63, captured Democrat Heidi Heitkamp’s seat in 2018 in one of the year’s most closely watched Senate races.

Christiansen, who ran unsuccessfully against U.S. Sen. John Hoeven in 2022, cast herself as a problem solver and highlighted her rural and impoverished upbringing amid the nation’s agricultural crisis in challenging Cramer. The 43-year-old opponent has a doctorate in agricultural engineering and worked as an engineer at an ethanol plant before taking a job as an assistant engineering professor at the University of Jamestown.

Cramer has been a longtime supporter of former President Donald Trump. He is known for his approachable but blunt manner. He has been a player in state Republican Party politics for decades, including as a young state party chairman in the early 1990s, when Republicans turned the tables on North Dakota’s then-dominant Democrats.

Christiansen argued that Cramer has lost touch with issues in North Dakota since leaving for Washington. She made these claims in a television ad featuring Trump-supporting farmer Frank Tomac, saying, “If they go to Washington like Kevin Cramer, the people at home suffer.”

Cramer served as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from 2013 to 2019 and as a member of the state Public Service Commission from 2003 to 2012. He also served as director of tourism and economic development and chief financial officer under the then government. Ed Schafer.

Cramer is campaigning as his son Ian Cramer faces charges in connection with a December 2023 chase and crash that killed a sheriff’s deputy, Paul Martin, in Mercer County, northwest of the state capital Bismarck. Ian Cramer pleaded guilty to all charges, including murder, in September and has yet to be sentenced.