BISMARCK, N.D. -- Dwight Thompson is a solid conservative businessman who will be voting for a Republican for president and a Democrat for Senate.
He's a ticket-splitter, a rare political breed critical to Democratic Senate candidates in states like North Dakota, where Republican Mitt Romney is expected to easily win the presidential race while down-ballot contests remain stubbornly close.
North Dakota is enjoying an energy development boom and, unlike most of the rest of the nation, its economy is robust. Unemployment is 3 percent, the lowest of any state in the nation. The Senate race here largely has come down to the personalities of Democrat Heidi Heitkamp and Republican Rep. Rick Berg.
Thompson, 57, of Grand Forks, sees no contradiction in his decision. For him, it's about familiarity.
"There's just a kind of feistiness about (Heitkamp). I think that draws people to her," said Thompson, the chief financial officer of Altru Health System. "It's more for Heidi than against Berg."
Less than three weeks from Election Day, the North Dakota Senate race looms large in the broader race for control of the Senate.
Republicans need to gain four seats to take control of the Senate if President Barack Obama is re-elected, three if Mitt Romney wins the White House. That's because the vice president, who also serves as president of the Senate, has a vote in case of a tie.
The GOP task of gaining four has become increasingly difficult because of candidates like Heitkamp in races the GOP had once considered plum pickup opportunities.
Republicans romped in North Dakota in 2010. Berg took the state's lone seat in the House away from a Democrat as GOP Gov. John Hoeven easily won a Senate seat formerly in Democratic hands. Afterward, four-term Democratic Sen. Kent Conrad decided against running again.
Voters like Thompson have long since made up their minds about the presidential race. Romney, like every Republican presidential candidate in the state since 1964, is expected to win in a waltz.
But the contest between Berg and Heitkamp has remained close. A recent Mason-Dixon poll of the state conducted for Valley News Live had the two candidates tied at 47 percent each. The same poll showed Romney easily beating Obama and Republican Kevin Cramer comfortably ahead of his Democratic challenger, Pam Gulleson, in the race for Berg's House seat.
Ticket-splitting has a long history in North Dakota. Until 2010, the state's congressional delegation had been entirely Democratic since 1986, even as the state regularly voted for the GOP presidential ticket.
Republicans had hoped that the Senate race would be over by now, that Romney voters intrigued by Heitkamp would settle in with Berg. The first-term congressman's case to voters has been similar to Romney's: a healthy emphasis on the national debt, a dismissal of Obama's policies and the promise that he can bring his skills as a businessman to the Senate.
H/T: Huffington Post
