By Jonas Blank
Congressional Quarterly

Electoral votes: 3

Delegates: 19

Chairman: Curly Haugland

Hotel: Four Points Philadelphia Airport (215) 492-0400

1996 Election:
Dole – 47%
Clinton – 40%
Perot – 12%

Like many contingents of Republicans heading to Philadelphia, the leaders of North Dakota's delegation are hoping to avoid the kind of divisive platform fight common to recent GOP conventions.

"We don't have anybody carrying specific agendas," said Curly Haugland, chairman of the state Republican Party and the convention delegation.

What the delegates are talking about are economic issues, both generic - such as complaints about high taxes - and specific to North Dakota, such as sagging crop prices, a big deal in the predominantly rural and heavily farmed state.

There has been political fallout from Republican-sponsored "Freedom to Farm" legislation, enacted in 1996, which removed New Deal-era price supports for many of the farm commodities on which North Dakota's economy relies.

Nonetheless, North Dakota Republicans go to the convention with confidence that Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush will carry their Republican-leaning state - which has voted for the GOP presidential candidate in 14 of the past 15 presidential elections and in each of the past eight.

"George W. Bush is wildly popular [in North Dakota]," said Drew Wrigley, the state Republican executive director and alternate delegate. Wrigley asserted that Bush has a "huge lead" in recent state polls, adding, "His brand of politics just meshes really well with people here."

Another issue sure to help Bush with North Dakotans, said state party Vice Chairman Richard Brown, is his $483 billion tax reduction plan. Brown also is an alternate delegate.

Despite Bush's purported strength there, the proportional distribution of delegates in the state's caucus process deprived him of a solid bloc of delegate support. Four delegates were designated for Arizona Sen. John McCain, with one going to Alan Keyes, a talk show host and social conservative activist.

Brown insisted that the delegation is united behind Bush, and that the small number of non-Bush votes are "not really an issue."

Among the state's prominent delegates are retiring two-term Gov. Edward T. Schafer and banker John Hoeven, the party's nominee this year to succeed Schafer. State Rep. John Dorso, who is challenging four-term Democratic Rep. Earl Pomeroy, is an alternate delegate.

The North Dakota delegation does not include any racial minorities, but there aren't many to choose from in North Dakota: 95 percent of the state's residents are white; blacks and Hispanics make up 1 percent each.

Of the state's 19 delegates and 19 alternates, 15 are women. According to alternate delegate Crystal Dueker, these women are primarily political moderates.

Wrigley claims that the representation of women is no political ploy. The increasing number of women involved throughout North Dakota Republican politics is a result, he said, of "a very, very open" political process.

Some North Dakota women activists, including Dueker, initially supported Elizabeth Dole's short-lived bid for the 2000 presidential nomination. Dueker even came to Washington in June to participate in a rally urging Bush to pick Dole - a former Cabinet member and American Red Cross president who is married to 1996 Republican presidential nominee Bob Dole - as his vice presidential candidate.

NORTH DAKOTA NOTABLES: Gov. Edward T. Schafer (retiring); banker John Hoeven, the Republican nominee for governor; Curly Haugland, the state Republican chairman and delegation chairman; state Rep. John Dorso, an alternate delegate who is the Republican nominee for the state's at-large House seat.