Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND) has said she won’t run for governor next year, dashing what many viewed as the Democrats’ best chance to win the state’s top office for the first time since 1992.
Heitkamp, a member of the North Dakota Democratic-Nonpartisan League Party, announced the decision on her brother’s radio show Wednesday. GOP Gov. Jack Dalrymple announced he would not seek reelection late last month.
Heitkamp said in a statement that she did not want to split her time between work in the Senate and campaigning.
Read the full statement on the decision, provided to TPM, below:
Ever since Governor Dalrymple announced he would not run for re-election, I have had many North Dakotans encourage me to run for governor. While I greatly appreciate that trust and confidence, I have a job that I love and that the people of North Dakota entrusted to me for a full six years, so I will not run for governor in 2016.
Despite the frustrating partisanship that comes with working in the U.S. Senate, there is no other place where I can do as much to open up markets for North Dakota farmers, lift the ban on exporting oil, level the playing field for American workers, and stand up for Native Americans. Every day, I get to work with Democrats and Republicans to do what is best for our country and state, and, day by day, we’re making Congress work a little better and with a little less dysfunction.
I don’t want to divide my time between a campaign and all the important work for the state of North Dakota that I still need to complete in the Senate. I look forward to continuing to work to break the gridlock in Washington because there is still so much more to do to strengthen rural America and build a brighter future for our state. I want to live up to the promise I made to all North Dakotans that I would work as I hard as I could for them every day in the U.S. Senate – and that’s what I’m going to keep doing.
