538: 'We can't have District 46 be the front lines of a culture war'

Todd Reisenauer says he'd like to get elected to the North Dakota House of Representatives so that he can take Fargo-area District 46 in a new direction. He said he'd like to focus on issues like housing, healthcare, childcare, and property taxes.

What he doesn't want to do, he says, is emulate the approach taken by one of incumbents in that district, state Rep. Jim Kasper, who has been in the center of debates over social issues like book bans and issues surrounding our transgender neighbors.

"We can't have District 46 be the front lines of a culture war," Reisenauer told Chad Oban and I on this episode of Plain Talk.

The legislative races in District 46 are worth watching. The jurisdiction represents one of the few purple districts in North Dakota and has a history of mixed-partisan leadership.

Reisenauer said he admired the work done by another of the Republican incumbents in the district, outgoing Rep. Shannon Roers, who opted not to run for reeelction. He said he got interested in the race when he heard Roers was retiring, and that he wants to continue her work of making District 46 "a bipartisan, get things done kind of district."

"We're burning people out," Reisenauer said, addressing the polarized nature of politics in 2024. "I'm not an activist," he added, saying he has no interested in playing partisan politics and "selling fear."

"I don't want to be a part of that," he said, adding that he's "not afraid to say conservatives have good policy ideas, and that sometimes Demcorats overshoot."

Also on this episode, Oban and I discuss the vice presidential debate between Sen. J.D. Vance and Gov. Tim Walz, and the news of a North Dakota man, the son of a Republican legislative candidate in District 24, getting arrested for his alleged participation in the January 6 attack on Congress.

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