FARGO — Instead of making a splash across national news outlets, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum’s announcement that he
was running for president on Wednesday, June 7
, made barely a ripple.
Just an hour after Burgum’s speech, former Vice President Mike Pence announced his run for president. Coupled with the record-breaking poor air quality across the Northeast and litigation involving former President Donald Trump, little discussion was had across the major news networks over the North Dakota governor’s chances.
Although the 10:30 a.m. live stream interrupted programming on all metro-area channels and most statewide from its start, CNN, MSNBC and Fox News, the big three 24-hour news networks aired only Burgum’s time on the stage with little discussion.
CNN was the only network to cue up to the announcement shortly beforehand, with some discussion of Burgum on CNN’s “Inside Politics” with John King.
Across the airwaves Fox News aired its regular program “Outnumbered,” before cutting to the live stream as Burgum’s speech began.
MSNBC also interrupted its program, “Andrea Mitchell Reports,” briefly to host the live stream.
For Burgum, pundits said his greatest challenge will be the lack of name recognition around the country.
“He’s well-known in North Dakota, the job ahead is to introduce himself to voters,” said a guest on CNN.
Burgum acknowledged his small-town roots in his announcement on Wednesday. “Frankly, big cities could use more small-town values right now,” he said.
A CNN reporter covering the event live from Fargo briefly compared Burgum and Pence, noting both men were from the heartland and “believe in politeness, in conversation.” Pundits on “Inside Politics” also agreed both Pence and Burgum are likely to have a difficult road ahead if they hope to beat current 2024 GOP front-runner Trump.
Following the speech, CNN quickly changed gears to cover an investigation involving Trump’s handling of classified documents, and Fox News returned to its “Outnumbered” program and discussed an immigration argument between Florida Gov. Ron Desantis and California Gov. Gavin Newsom.
Major networks then moved to the topic of poor air quality from Canadian wildfires that have infiltrated New York City and shut down airports.
Network cycles by 5 p.m. Wednesday were dominated by the air quality crisis, ongoing Trump litigation and Pence’s chances of winning the GOP nomination.
Burgum’s name was also hard to come by on the home pages of major print news outlets like the New York Times and the Washington Post.
Like the networks, both publications heavily featured the poor air quality, and only halfway down the page on the Washington Post was a story referencing Burgum’s “long-shot” bid.
Politico.com featured Burgum’s announcement further down on its home page and also referenced the governor’s slim chances with a subhead that read: “Go ahead. Google him.”
Wendy Reuer covers all things West Fargo for The Forum.
