ND Dem-NPL Calls for Transparency as GOP Goes Crawling Back to Jaeger

Less than two months after nominating Window-Peeping Will Gardner for Secretary of State, Republicans plead with Al Jaeger to run as an Independent

(BISMARCK, ND) — After news broke last weekend that the North Dakota Republican Party-endorsed candidate for Secretary of State Will Gardner was arrested in a 2006 peeping tom incident, the GOP was left scrambling for a replacement. So, they decided to go back to the candidate they cast aside after 26 years in office: Al Jaeger.

While Republican Gardner backers issue denials of any knowledge of Gardner’s behavior, Jaeger is mounting an independent campaign with the help of his establishment friends to try and keep the job he’s clung on to for over two and a half decades. But many questions remain around how the campaign will work and how it will interact with the Republican party infrastructure, and North Dakotans deserve answers.

“The whole debacle has been embarrassing for North Dakotans,” said Scott McNeil, Executive Director of the Democratic-NPL. “It’s a stunning reversal: the Republicans went from questioning Al Jaeger’s competency for yet another term in office to the unusual route of an ad hoc endorsement. Given the extraordinary circumstance this race is now in, voters deserve the utmost transparency from the ND GOP and the Secretary of State’s office. The North Dakota Republican Party, by not properly vetting their first choice and now supporting a candidate who has stood in the way of modernizing the office, have shown they are would rather hold onto power than better the lives of their constituents.”