Official Newspaper of Eddy County since 1883
Official Newspaper of Eddy County since 1883
Several candidates are gearing up for a contested election in the newly formed District 9.
The new district was ordered by Chief Judge Peter Welte after the Turtle Mountain and Spirit Lake tribes successfully argued that the previous district maps for their reservations violated the Voting Rights Act.
Consequently, District 9 now encompasses the entirety of the Spirit Lake Nation and Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa, which includes all of Rolette County and parts of Benson, Eddy and Pierce Counties.
The change also requires the district to hold another election, two years earlier than they otherwise would have.
With both reservations in the same district, the Democratic-NPL party is expected to have a good chance of sending three candidates to fill all their district’s open positions at the state capitol in Bismarck.
During the District 9 Democratic nominating convention on Sunday, March 3, the Democratic-NPL party endorsed its three candidates – all three are members of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa.
Their candidate for the N.D. Senate seat is Richard Marcellais, a long time senator who is trying to make his return to the state capitol. Marcellais won the endorsement over one of District 9’s current representatives, Jayme Davis.
After failing to get an endorsement for the Senate seat, Davis was successfully endorsed to seek re-election to the N.D. House. Endorsed for the district’s other House seat was Craig Poitra, who currently serves as a Rolette County commissioner.
Poitra and Davis were endorsed from a pool of five candidates, which includes Marvin Nelson, District 9 representative from 2011-2022 and a former candidate for governor, as well as Collette Brown and Ron Peltier.
Meanwhile, the District 9 Republican Party will also be putting forth a pair of tribal members to vie for the district’s House seats.
On February 24, they endorsed David “Doc” Brien, a Turtle Mountain tribal member, and Robert Graywater, a Spirit Lake member.
For the Senate, meanwhile, it will likely be Senator Judy Estenson who ends up running against Marcellais.
Estenson is a non-tribal member who lives on the Spirit Lake Reservation. She won her N.D. Senate seat when the Spirit Lake Reservation was still part of District 15, along with the rest of Ramsey County.
Though several candidates were officially endorsed, that does not mean they’ll end up being their party’s official nominees. That won’t be decided until the primary elections on Tuesday, June 11.
