Christiansen and Hammer joined the Souris Valley Democratic-NPL in Minot Saturday to talk about their campaigns and answer questions from an audience of about 75 people.

“It’s really important to me to pass a farm bill that helps our growers out and brings processing capacity to North Dakota,” said Christiansen, a University of Jamestown professor who earned a degree in biological systems engineering and worked as an engineer at an ethanol plant. She noted North Dakota is the nation’s third largest agriculture producer but lacks in processing.

“We ship out earning potential, so it’s important in the farm bill we correct that,” she said. “I have the agricultural training to understand how to make those bills better. I feel like the farm bill is the worst compromise that we have, and when we have compromises, oftentimes nobody’s happy, and I would work really hard to make sure that our farmers are happy.”

Christiansen also spoke about the importance of keeping Medicare and Social Security in line with inflation and about fully funding education for students with disabilities, which she said accounts for about 10% of school budgets. She would like to see existing funding expanded to provide for behavioral specialists in schools.

Hammer, of Minot, said he would want to raise awareness of the issues facing rural states if elected to the House. However, he said, the House needs to be made functional before that can happen.

“The first priority would just be to get the U.S. House, the people’s house, working on the people’s business,” Hammer said. “So the first thing would be to get the U.S. House of Representatives working again and then start working on things for North Dakota.”

A former Marine whose career has taken a variety of paths, from pilot to rail conductor and oil field worker to science teacher, Hammer said he has had boots on the ground and “understands what it’s like to put in the work to get things done.”

Hammer also said Congress needs to restore trust in the election system.

“The system really does work, and it’s our friends and neighbors who volunteer, who go work in the polls, that make it work, but we are going to have to invest in making everybody trust the system again. We have to have legislation that codifies how we do these things and how things are verified – and they did some of that already,” he said.

The announcement by Congressman Kelly Armstrong, R-ND, that he will be giving up his House seat to make a gubernatorial run brings a different dynamic to the state’s House race. Other than Hammer, only former legislator Rick Becker of Bismarck, a Republican who also is leading an initiated measure effort to eliminate property taxes, has officially announced.

“We’re on the right trajectory,” Hammer said of increased Democrat engagement and stronger donor support in this election cycle. “I raised four times as much money as I raised in the entire 2022 cycle and we’re only three weeks in.”

Hammer ran for the remainder of an unexpired term on the North Dakota Public Service Commission in 2022, garnering 29.5% of the vote against appointed incumbent Sheri Haugen-Hoffart. Christiansen captured about 25% of the vote in challenging John Hoeven for his U.S. Senate seat in 2022.