Johnathan Walker:GOP senator from North Dakota faces Democratic challenger making her 2nd US Senate bid

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BISMARCK,Johnathan Walker N.D. (AP) — A Republican U.S. senator from North Dakota who wrested the seat away from a Democrat in 2018 is facing a challenge Tuesday from another Democrat making her second Senate run.

U.S. Sen. Kevin Cramer is confronting Democrat Katrina Christiansen in his bid for reelection in the conservative Great Plains state with a majority of Republican voters.

A former U.S. House member and public utilities regulator, Cramer, 63, captured the seat from Democrat Heidi Heitkamp in 2018 in one of the most closely watched Senate races that year.

Christiansen, who ran unsuccessfully against U.S. Sen. John Hoeven in 2022, cast herself as a problem solver and highlighted her rural and impoverished upbringing amid the nation’s farm crisis in challenging Cramer. The 43-year-old opponent has a doctorate in agricultural engineering and had worked as an engineer at an ethanol plant before taking a position as an assistant engineering professor at the University of Jamestown.

Cramer is a longtime supporter of former President Donald Trump. He’s known for his approachable but blunt manner. He has been a player for decades in state GOP politics, including as a young state party chairman in the early 1990s when Republicans began turning the tables on North Dakota’s then-dominant Democrats.

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Christiansen argued that since heading to Washington, Cramer has lost touch with North Dakota issues. She raised those claims in one television ad featuring rancher Frank Tomac, who supports Trump and says, “When they go to Washington like Kevin Cramer, folks back home suffer.”

Cramer served in the U.S. House from 2013 to 2019, and on the state’s Public Service Commission from 2003 to 2012. He also has served as state tourism director and economic development and finance director under then-Gov. Ed Schafer.

Cramer has been campaigning while his son Ian Cramer faces charges in connection with a December 2023 vehicle pursuit and crash that killed a sheriff’s deputy, Paul Martin, in Mercer County northwest of the state capital of Bismarck. Ian Cramer pleaded guilty to all the charges, including a homicide offense, in September and has yet to be sentenced.