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Welcome to a special midweek message from the North Dakota Democratic-NPL Insider, a newsletter that features regular updates about upcoming Dem-NPL events, legislative happenings, and news that affects North Dakotans! If you would like to have something added to the newsletter, email us at laura.dronen@Demnpl.com. Spread the word of our newsletter by sharing our sign-up link today: https://demnpl.com/join-our-newsletter/.
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We must fight for a better future for all Americans. We cannot fail. We must not fail.
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A speech by Chair Adam Goldwyn to the Democratic-NPL Policy Committee, May 3, 2025, The Post in Mandan
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It’s been two years since we gathered together at a policy committee in Bismarck, a two years full of joy, triumph, anxiety, and, these last few months, anger, frustration, and grief. But I want to be clear: the North Dakota Dem-NPL is still here, still ready to fight; alongside our grief is a newfound strength, resilience, and determination. I am not prepared to give up on our state, on our democracy, or on a world that is counting on us. There is still hope, right where our Dem-NPL and our country have always found it, right here, with us, ordinary citizens braver than our Congresswoman, more patriotic than our Senators, more honorable than our President. The last time I was in Bismarck was a few weeks ago for the reorg meeting; there were over three hundred ordinary citizens here, about half of whom had never been to a reorg, or any Dem-NPL meeting before. It was the largest gathering of Dem-NPL’ers in this state since before the pandemic. And now we are gathered here again, alongside old and familiar faces, and new ones. I would like to ask anyone at their first policy committee to stand so we can applaud and welcome you. I am not going to lie to you about the tough times we’ve had, or the tough times we face, but there is still hope, and as long as there is hope, we will continue to make good trouble. Because we have had some wins.
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Every day we see the corruption, chaos, and cruelty, of this Trump administration, imposing reckless tariffs that threaten our economy
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Two years ago I set out as a primary goal that I wanted to help build a party we could all be proud of, and in the 2024 campaign, we did that. Merrill Piepkorn and Patrick Hart ran a campaign that we could be proud of, talking about cost of living, child care, property tax reform, real issues that affect real people in their real lives. Tracey Wilkie ran a campaign for Public Service Commission that talked about making sure that the wealth from the oil extraction industry stays in our state, and that we prevent our state from becoming a toxic dumping ground for the mineral waste of the upper Midwest. I always say that if North Dakotans voted for what they say they value in their leaders, Trygve Hammer and Katrina Christiansen would be in Washington right now. Trygve and Katrina, two of the hardest working candidates I have ever seen, carried the Dem-NPL message of a fairer economy and greater opportunity for everyone all across this state. Every day we see the corruption, chaos, and cruelty, of this Trump administration, imposing reckless tariffs that threaten our economy, an inept secretary of defense threatening our security, unconscionable ICE raids that are now grabbing American citizens as young as two years old and deporting them, cutting funding for $23 million for services for disabled people in Minot, $20 million for clean drinking water projects in Lincoln, Washburn, and Fessenden, and I think, what if we had elected Katrina and Trygve.
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Our federal legislators won’t hold open town halls for their own constituents, but there was no place in this state that Katrina and Trygve and our Dem-NPL statewides wouldn’t go to make people’s lives just a little bit better. And that’s not even counting all our local candidates, who put in hours and miles talking to their neighbors about local issues, about opposing corporate farming and legal immunity for Monsanto, about how to provide quality education that protects teachers and librarians, gives food to students, and keeps public dollars in public schools. Our job is to give people a choice, and we ran in places that had not seen Dem-NPL’ers on the ballot in years, special shoutout to Rosemary Tanberg, Betty Duyhvetter, and Gene Nygaard in District 2, one of the toughest districts in the state, which hadn’t had candidates since 2016. I could not have been more proud to be a Dem-NPL’er, watching them and all our legislative candidates on the ticket.
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The day after we nominated them at our convention, all our state legislative candidates gathered for a day of training. It was a Sunday morning; it was snowing; I was wiped out from the convention work, so I was just going to pop into the training for ten minutes, give a pep talk and get out of there and get on with my day. I went up to the fourth floor of the Radisson, past a cardboard cutout of Joe and Kamala and into some bland conference room, and I was blown away. A room full of Dem-PL’ers prepared to carry the banner for this party and our values, dozens of candidates, from all over the state: union workers, new Americans, native Americans, teachers, nurses, doctors, small business owners, a volunteer firefighter, young people just out of college, seniors who wanted a better world for their children and grandchildren and generations they would not live to see flourish and thrive in a free country in our wonderful state. I gave what passes for a pep talk, and then I just sat in the back of the room watching, thinking of the great responsibility these people had taken on, ordinary citizens working together to build a better world against a criminal billionaire and the cowards of the Republican Party bent on wrecking our state and our country and taking it all for themselves. I was so proud to be a Dem-NPL’er that day.
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All across this state, the Dem-NPL had run candidates who were honorable and just, community-oriented and civic-minded.
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As the votes came in on November 7, alongside that sinking feeling I know we all felt, was a deep sense of pride in what we had done and how we had done it, and a deep sense of humility that I had gotten to play a small part in it. All across this state, the Dem-NPL had run candidates who were honorable and just, community-oriented and civic-minded. I know some of them are here; I would ask them to stand up so we can thank them.
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For me, there were two big takeaways from the election. First, in an electoral environment where almost every district in every state in the Union went further to the right, in North Dakota we held even. At the state level, we lost one House member and gained a Senator. This was never going to be an overnight fix, but we held even. The other takeaway is that Katrina Christiansen got 121,602, not enough to win, but enough to prove that there are Dem-NPL’ers in every corner of this state, every city, every town, every farm, everywhere. There are many places Hoeven, Feodrchak, and Cramer won’t go in this state, actually almost the whole state, but there is nowhere you as a Dem-NPL’er can go where you will not find a likeminded person with whom you can organize in the true spirit of the NPL, neighbor talking to neighbors about how to make their lives better.
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Over the past few months, I have been equally proud, and I know you have been too, of what our legislative caucus has done in Bismarck, fighting for missing and murdered indigenous persons, property tax reform, feeding school children. And what do the Republicans have to be proud of? What do they have to show for their supermajority? Nico Rios, drunkenly accosting a police officer with homophobic, antisemitic, and anti-immigrant slurs. Rep. Jason Dockter, found guilty of “speculating or wagering on official action,” using his position of public trust to enrich himself; in Grand Forks, Rep. Scott Meyer threatening to kill his political opponent and Rep. Eric Murphy accused of Title IX sexual harassment, who then turned around and used his government position to try to weaken protections against sexual harassment. But when people look back on this legislative session, they will only remember one thing: the conviction of Republican Senator Ray Holmberg, the longest-serving state senator in the country at the time of his arrest, a pedophile and a rapist, now rotting in prison. When our Dem-NPL legislators demanded they give the voter-approved ethics commission real teeth, they cowered; when our Dem-NPL legislators demanded that legislators be made mandatory reporters of sexual violence, they refused. For all the power of their supermajority, what do they have to be proud of? Nothing. This was a legislature of shame, and the Republican Party will be remembered for looking the other way when a groomer, a pedophile, and a rapist led them; for covering up for their colleagues now; and for doing nothing to make sure it doesn’t happen again. I would rather be a Dem-NPL’er.
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They are not flying over North Dakota, they are coming here, in person.
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I am also proud to say that we have worked hard to be heard by our national partners, and I am now prepared to say that, whatever may have happened in the past, it is simply untrue that North Dakota is flyover state. The evidence is right there in front of us: if you look at the top three officials in the DNC, our Chair Ken Martin, our Executive Director Roger Lau, and the President of the Association of State Democratic Committees Jane Kleeb, all of them have been to North Dakota in the past two years, as well as our former Vice Presidential candidate Governor Tim Walz. They are not flying over North Dakota, they are coming here, in person. North Dakota’s own Libby Schneider is the Deputy Executive Director of the DNC, Kylie Oversen is chair of the DNC Rural Council, I am president of the Midwest region of the Association of State Democratic Committees. If you had seen our delegation at the DNC nominating convention in Chicago, or the work of our DNC committee folks Jamie Selzler and Renae Aarfor, working the floor at that 2025 DNC election meeting, you would have been very, very proud of them. And I was proud to carry Lisa Finley-Deville’s proxy, and for both of us to cast votes for Kalyn Free, the first ever votes for a Native American woman to be vice chair of the DNC. When Ruth Buffalo and I served on the DNC together, she sponsored and I co-sponsored a resolution urging President Biden to grant clemency to Leonard Peltier. The resolution unanimously passed, and President Biden heard us, and after half a century in prison, Leonard Peltier gets to live the rest of his days with his family.
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Our work at the national level has paid off. The DNC is committed to a fifty-seven state and territory strategy that will see increased funding to state parties. Just last week, the DNC announced that they will increase our funding from $15,000/month to $22,500 per month. That is down to our national delegation building those relationships, voting and campaigning for national leaders who know our struggles. Our national partners have stepped up for us, committing half a million dollars over the next election cycle; now I’m going to ask you to do so also. Based on 2024 century club membership, we took in $48,200. If we increased that by 10% or $4820/yr, that would mean: 32 more base level members (less than 1/district), 16 House level donors (2/region), 10 Senate level donors, or 5 Presidential level donors. If every district found 10 people to make a single $50 donation each year, we could fund a part-time organizer in western ND. I want to hit that goal right now. I’m going to ask you to take out your phones; if you’re not a member yet, join the Century Club. If you’re a member, I ask if you can dig a little deeper and go one level up. I’m a Presidential level donor; $1,000/year. I ask you to join me if you can.
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There are many challenges ahead, and the people are asking us to fight. They are asking us to fight this destructive Trump agenda nationally and a destructive Republican agenda here in North Dakota. That is why our leadership team is committed to getting out across the state in the next few weeks. We will be back in Bismarck again on May 16, and we will be in Williston and Minot on May 17 as part of our statewide listening tour.
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We are joined in the great conflict of the twenty-first century, the great conflict that has always defined our nation, between freedom and oppression, between democracy and tyranny, between economic prosperity for all or obscene wealth for the few.
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We here in North Dakota are part of a great global fight for freedom. From the battlefields of Ukraine to law-courts in DC, to special elections around this country, to committee rooms in Bismarck, in big cities and small towns all across the country and around the world, we are joined in the great conflict of the twenty-first century, the great conflict that has always defined our nation, between freedom and oppression, between democracy and tyranny, between economic prosperity for all or obscene wealth for the few. If we had lived two hundred fifty years ago, our nation would have needed us to pick up a musket and start shooting redcoats; if we had lived seventy-five years ago, she would have needed us to storm the beaches of Normandy and fight our way to Berlin. If we lived sixty years ago, she would have needed us to face down the dogs and the hoses on the Edmund Pettus Bridge. By being in this room, right here, right now, we are doing our part. For two hundred and fifty years, our country has been an imperfect but bright light for freedom-loving people everywhere – it was a Republican President who called us a shining city on the hill; a great experiment in whether ordinary citizens like us can govern ourselves, or whether we need the heavy hand of kings and dictators. Again, that experiment is being called into question, whether a nation of the people, by the people, and for the people can stand. For those joining us at the Governors Dinner tonight, we will have as our keynote speaker Harry Dunn, a Capitol police officer who literally put his body and his life on the line for this nation on one of its darkest days. We had all hoped that those dark days were behind us, but they’re not, and we will need his example, a nation of tens of millions of Harry Dunns, engaged in daily small acts of resistance to hold our democracy together and fight for a better future for all Americans. We cannot fail. We must not fail. What we are doing today, what we do tomorrow, what we do every day for the next two and four years is our contribution to that fight, so I thank you for being here. Let’s get to work.
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The Century Club supports our year-round work to build party infrastructure supporting candidate recruitment, local district and regional leadership, issue-based education, and tools for Dem-NPL success.
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Help us elect great Democrats up and down the ballot!
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The North Dakota Democratic-NPL is launching a new grassroots program called “Neighbor to Neighbor” where volunteers will connect with voters in your community to elect Democrats up and down the ballot. As a volunteer, you will be responsible for connecting with voters in 25 homes in your neighborhood or friends and family to help elect Democrats up and down the ballot about 3-4 times this year.
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Grassroots organizers are the lifeblood of the Dem-NPL! Sign up to volunteer with the Dem-NPL!
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