The 2022 election season has kicked off, and the situation for both parties in North Dakota is more fraught than some would like to admit.

The Democratic-NPL sputtered out of the gate at the end of March, putting up candidates in only 19 of the 35 districts on the ballot this cycle. The NDGOP convention, which by all accounts was well attended, devolved into a toxic clash between party gatekeepers and a populist uprising from within.

The N.D. Republicans have been in power for basically my entire lifetime, and statewide elections have also skewed their way in recent years. With the governorship and every other statewide office also in their grasp, where is all this discord coming from?

Republican party leaders found themselves at the convention contending with a combative conservative groundswell when state Rep. Rick Becker decided to take on incumbent Sen. John Hoeven. Becker’s brash style and libertarian edge attracted enough support to make the GOP establishment sweat, but in the end, Sen. Hoeven eked out a victory, claiming the party’s endorsement.

With Becker announcing he will not run in the June Primary, another player is stepping into his place, as Dickinson oil worker Riley Kuntz filed his paperwork to mount one last challenge against Hoeven. The divide remains, leaving the party disoriented and unsure where it stands with constituents in certain districts.

The Democrats came out of their own convention practically ceding the entire western half of the state to the GOP. In a recent letter to the editor in The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead, former executive director Jamie Selzler bemoaned the impossible task of recruiting candidates to run under his party’s banner. Selzler identified a general fear amongst possible candidates of personal attacks and danger to their families and businesses.

The more likely explanation is that potential candidates fear the coming backlash born of the electorate’s growing distaste for the policies of the national party. This suggests that the Democrat-NPL needs to find ways to differentiate itself from the excesses of the national party but still remain true to its founding values and principles. Its present party platform does not do that.

Here are some questions party leaders can ask themselves: Why is all the populist energy and rebelliousness in the Republican Party? If the Republican establishment is out touch and unresponsive, how can we appropriate this discontent and widen our appeal?

The Democrat-NPL needs to get back in the arena and contend with a GOP that seems to be increasingly out of touch and unaccountable. If Democrats continue to lack the will to critically evaluate their policies and the courage to lend their voice to the dialogue that is our republic, then the voters are doomed, with no real choice to make at all.