If you aren’t interested or entrenched in the realm of politics, the next few weeks are probably going to be rather annoying. When I was in the coffee shop recently, the radio was blasting a Hoeven ad. When I glanced down at my phone while I waited in line, the articles were often interrupted by campaign blurbs for the celebrated but staunchly independent House candidate Cara Mund. If nothing else these candidates know their target demographics.

With election day fast approaching, Mund and the incumbent Rep. Kelly Armstrong of Dickinson met in the Anishinaabe Theater at the Memorial Union at NDSU on Oct. 11 for a rare debate between a major party candidate and an outsider, though she hardly looks or sounds like one.

The former Miss America is the hippest and most exciting individual to enter the North Dakota political field in quite some time. I grant you that’s not saying too much considering how aged and beige our state’s politics tend to be, but her decision to run has completely shaken up what was shaping up to be a rather by-the-numbers midterm election, Rick Becker’s renegade run at Hoeven notwithstanding.

Look no further for evidence of this than one of the two major parties bending over backwards to take their own candidate out of the equation to make way for her, leaving voters trapped in yet another binary choice.

But that question regarding Mund’s “Independence” continues to be a niggling one, especially for a marginal pundit like myself who would love nothing more than for anyone without an R or D next to their name to hold office. Her performance in this debate did nothing to give me hope that we are on the precipice of such a non-partisan moment.

While she did echo Armstrong on a number of issues related to agriculture and the energy industry, the Harvard Law graduate spent a majority of her time slagging Armstrong with rhetoric practically identical to what I’ve come to expect from the hectoring scolds on cable news over the last decade.

I get it, he’s the “Beast” and she’s playing the “Smiler,” but in a state like North Dakota, at least a smidgen of authenticity is required.

While Armstrong gamely answered questions regarding his campaign’s finances and the support he has received from PACs, Mund trumpeted her own meager fundraising from individual donors as a sign that she wasn’t beholden to anyone. For some reason Rep. Armstrong had within him the restraint to take the high road and not point out who has been hosting the fundraisers that a not insignificant chunk of her cash has come from. Those ads on Forum Communications websites surely aren’t cheap after all.

But to be fair to Mund, I can’t begrudge her working the “abortion” angle as much as she has; after all, that wrinkle is the only reason she was compelled to run in the first place. By the time the Dobb’s ruling was leaked, the NDGOP had already had their convention, leaving the independent route the only path available to her.

It’s not Mund’s fault that most of the people in North Dakota who agree with her on abortion probably vote Democrat, or that the NDGOP would burn the bridge by installing rules that prevent her from running as Republican in the near future. But it’s hard to take all of her righteous fury from being associated with the Dem-NPL very seriously when her rhetoric and policies so closely mirror theirs.

Mund’s rollout and reception by North Dakota’s more left-leaning media was fawning, reminiscent of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s rise to national prominence at the beginning of the Trump years. Ocasio-Cortez was the right candidate for the right moment, propelled by an urgency felt by a political party and an electorate to right course of the nation. That same urgency and frustration is deeply felt amongst the constituency of the Dem-NPL over the issue of abortion, which no doubt is why she has had the way cleared for her to be their DeFacto candidate.

It probably serves both the Dem-NPL and Mund better for their association to not be official, as moribund as that brand is outside the Red River Valley.

However, it was Mund who stridently drove home during the debate that she is an unbound and uncompromised candidate seeking only what is best for the state. I don’t doubt her sincerity on the last part. By all accounts she is accomplished, and took the steps few do to mount a serious run, and for that I applaud her. But to act as though she doesn’t have the support of a party is a tad disingenuous, especially when they’re paying for polling data, and hosting fundraisers on her behalf.

As long as Mund is going to hound her opponent over who has been cutting him checks, it would do her well to own who has been cutting hers. She can criticize Armstrong over the constraints that national parties can employ, but based on her support for ruinous policies like the Paris Climate Accord and the Inflation Reduction Act, North Dakota voters can just about guess who will be constraining Mund in the future should she win.