North Dakota 2022 Election Results

North Dakota held its general election on November 8, 2022, deciding 98 legislative seats across 67 districts and 6 statewide offices. No chamber changed party control.

Highlights

• Republicans widened their supermajorities in both chambers on the first legislative maps drawn after the 2020 census, another blow to the Democratic-NPL, as North Dakota's Democratic Party is known, which has ceded statehouse influence for three decades.
• The losses fell hardest on Democratic senators. Richard Marcellais (D) lost Senate District 9 to Kent Weston (R), Tracy Potter (D) lost Senate District 35 to Sean Cleary (R), and JoNell Bakke (D) lost Senate District 43 to Jeff Barta (R). Democratic-NPL chair Patrick Hart blamed a GOP-led redistricting process that cost urban incumbents part of their base and placed Senate Minority Leader Joan Heckaman, a New Rockford Democrat, in another district. Todd Beard (R) won her old Senate District 23 seat unopposed.
• Redrawn two-seat House districts also pitted incumbents against each other. In House District 25, three sitting members ran for two seats, and Kathy Skroch (R) was the one squeezed out, behind Cynthia Schreiber-Beck (R) and Alisa Mitskog (D). In Grand Forks's House District 43, two Democratic incumbents, Reps. Zac Ista (D) and Mary Adams (D), were left competing for the second seat, and the race went to a recount; Ista kept it by four votes. In Fargo's House District 27, Rep. Ruth Buffalo (D) lost to Josh Christy (R), who won alongside incumbent Greg Stemen (R). Also in Fargo, Hamida Dakane (D) won a House District 10 seat, believed to be the first Muslim woman of color elected to the House.
• Statewide, Republicans easily won the partisan offices on the ballot. Attorney General Drew Wrigley (R), appointed after Wayne Stenehjem's death earlier in 2022, won by about 42 points over Timothy Lamb (D). State Rep. Michael Howe (R) won the secretary of state's office being vacated by Al Jaeger after 30 years.
• Across the legislative ballot, eight incumbents lost, six of them Democrats. One of the two Republicans, Rep. Terry Jones (R), lost to Lisa Finley-DeVille (D) in House District 4. Apart from those defeats, the closest race was Senate District 10 in Fargo, where Ryan Braunberger (D) held off Curtis Olafson (R) by fewer than 50 votes. Democrats failed to field candidates even in once-competitive urban districts, and 19 legislative races had only one candidate on the ballot.
• Voters split the two statewide measures. Constitutional Measure 1 passed, capping legislative service at eight years in each chamber and adding term limits for the governor. Statutory Measure 2, which would have legalized recreational marijuana for adults 21 and older, failed.

Legislature

• House (94 seats): 14 D, 80 R before the election, 12 D, 82 R after; control stayed with Republicans.
• Senate (47 seats): 7 D, 40 R before the election, 4 D, 43 R after; control stayed with Republicans.

Statewide races

Legislative races

Ballot measures