Doug Burgum hits presidential campaign trail in critical early state of Iowa

U.S. NEWS


FARLEY, Iowa —

North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum

on Thursday, June 8, kicked off his 2024 presidential campaign in familiar territory with a speech soon bound to be familiar to small communities across Iowa.

At his first stop at an agriculture equipment business in Farley, a small town near Dubuque, Burgum, surrounded by large machinery, delivered remarks focused on the economy, energy and the national security threat posed by China and other world powers, all while downplaying bitter cultural conflict as a core issue.

In his speech to a crowd of about 80 at CJ Beeps Equipment, the governor echoed many of the themes he already touched on in

his Wednesday campaign announcement in Fargo,

including bringing small-town “neighbors helping neighbors” values to the national political arena to help bring the country closer together.

Speaking with reporters later on, Burgum said his choice to start in a small eastern Iowa community was a symbolic one tied to his roots, noting his agricultural background, as well as First Lady Kathryn Burgum’s experience working at her family’s John Deere dealership in Jamestown, North Dakota.

“I grew up in a town of 300 people, a small ag community. Iowa is like home to us, … except there’s more people here,” he said. “We grew up in these ag businesses, we know that these are the people that make America work, and we thought this is a great place for us to start.”

Pointing to his decades of experience as

the CEO of a software company he helped build into a billion-dollar enterprise,

Burgum told the audience while debates over gender, sexuality and race are “very important” issues to many, a top executive needs to focus limited time on driving enterprise and innovation.

“We have got to get a federal government that’s not focused on over-regulating and burying every American in red tape, making decisions that increase inflation,” he told the crowd, many of whom were employees of the business.

Instead, he said, bitterly divisive cultural issues that have seized American political life are questions best left to state legislatures and local school boards.

“In North Dakota, all that stuff has all been fought and taken care of,” said Burgum, who earlier this year signed into law a restrictive abortion law and a ban on hormones and surgical interventions for transgender minors.

Burgum on Thursday said he would not back a nationwide ban on abortion and that the issue is best left to the states.

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North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, now a candidate in the 2024 presidential election, and First Lady Kathryn Burgum speak to a group at a farm equipment company in northeast Iowa Thursday, June 8, 2023.

Alex Derosier / Forum News Service

He spent much of Thursday in northeast Iowa and paid a visit to an area outside Dyersville that was the filming location of “Field of Dreams,” a 1989 film about an Iowa farmer played by Kevin Costner who builds a baseball field in a cornfield and draws ghosts of famous baseball players.

It’s a popular spot for candidates on the campaign trail in Iowa. At the baseball diamond from the film, the Burgums briefly played catch with some boys visiting the field and chatted with an Illinois couple who said they were traveling to North Dakota.

Election Day is a year and a half away, but candidates are already ramping up their campaigns in Iowa. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, seen as the top challenger to Donald Trump for the Republican nomination, has already made numerous stops in Iowa.

Burgum has avoided mentioning his GOP competitors in speeches, though he takes aim at President Joe Biden’s economic policy, which he says hurt innovation by burdening businesses with regulation. 

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Gov. Doug Burgum enters the stage at the Sanctuary Events Center in Fargo on Wednesday, June 7, 2023.

David Samson/The Forum

Burgum faces a steep climb in an increasingly crowded field of candidates.

His announcement that he would run got national media coverage but was overshadowed by former Vice President Mike Pence’s a

nnouncement on the same day, which was followed by a live town hall in Des Moines broadcast on CNN.

Iowa is a critical early battleground for presidential candidates as it hosts the first major electoral contest of the presidential primary season. The Iowa caucuses often take place in January of an election year, and many political observers see clinching success in that early contest as an indicator of candidate viability later on. Candidates who do not place high in the caucuses often drop out. 

Burgum is on a two-day tour of Iowa and on Saturday is headed to New Hampshire — traditionally host of the first primary election soon after the caucuses.  Already, Burgum has spent $1.5 million on TV ads in Iowa and $842,000 in New Hampshire, according to ad tracking by advertiser Medium Buying. The 15-, 30- and 60-second ads are set to start running on June 13.

Burgum’s focus on the economy and support for ethanol resonated with Kevin Rahe, a co-owner of CJ Beeps who grew up in the area and said biofuels are crucial to his farming community’s future.

Rahe said he felt the debate raging around issues like gender and the way schools teach about race in U.S. history were a distraction from fundamentals like immigration and the economy.

“I don’t want to listen to it. We’ve been hearing about it for the last year or two years,” he said. “I don’t think that’s where the focus should be. … I liked that he didn’t bring it up.”

But for Tina Hermsen, a deputy city clerk for the city of Farley, an ideal presidential candidate must address issues in his or her agenda. Hermsen said the idea of differences getting settled on the state and local level does not go far enough — a president should take a stand against teaching about gender and sexuality to younger students.

“You can’t sweep that stuff under the rug; you have to bring that to light and get it out there so that people understand what is happening,” she said, later adding: “It’s about so much more than the economy.”





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