In pro-Trump North Dakota, Democrat Heitkamp not resisting

MANDAN, North Dakota — Heidi Heitkamp has no time for resisting.

That’s what the North Dakota Democrat in one of the most Donald Trump-friendly states says, though it would seem she also doesn’t have that luxury.

The first-term U.S. senator, among the most vulnerable in her party seeking re-election this year, is maneuvering herself at once as an ally of the Republican president on policy and a polite opponent at other times.

“If you simply focus on resistance, if that’s your sole motivation and purpose, I don’t know how you’d ever get anything done,” Heitkamp said during an Associated Press interview at a coffee shop in Mandan, her hometown. “When we agree, we work together.”

Heitkamp’s record of championing some of Trump’s proudest deregulation moves has frustrated Republicans, who would like nothing more than to paint her as obstructing the president, as Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., has promised to do. Instead, Heitkamp’s Republican opponent, U.S. Rep. Kevin Cramer is competing with the incumbent to stand out as the better friend to Trump.

It’s a tack that Heitkamp says overstates Trump’s popularity.

Heitkamp is among 10 Democratic senators seeking re-election this year in states Trump carried in 2016. Their fate will go a long way to deciding whether Democrats stand a chance at capturing the majority in November. Republicans now hold a 51-49 edge.

On the surface, Heitkamp’s challenge may appear greater than those faced by her peers: In 2016, Trump won North Dakota by 36 percentage points, a margin exceeded only in West Virginia.

But Heitkamp, 62, is a near-40-year political veteran of this deeply conservative state. She comes to this moment with a background of statewide political success, heartbreaking defeat and deep insight about the issues of agriculture, energy and trade ,which drive this lightly populated but pivotal state.

“I’ve won elections by big margins, by little margins. And I’ve lost elections,” said Heitkamp, a former state attorney general and failed candidate for governor who won her Senate seat by 3,000 votes in 2012. “And that’s not what motivates me to do this work — winning and losing elections. It’s the work.”

Heitkamp has championed Trump’s move to loosen federal rules she has called onerous for North Dakota’s farmers and mining industry. Last month, she stood gleefully alongside Trump as he signed a measure easing regulations on community banks and credit unions, on which many farmers and rural businesses rely.

Heitkamp also has voted to confirm 21 of Trump’s 26 Cabinet-level nominations. Only West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, another Democrat facing re-election in a conservative state, has voted for more. Heitkamp has voted for the vast majority of Trump’s judicial nominees, including Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch.

Cramer, whose main campaign claim is his devotion to the president, has criticized Heitkamp for voting in December against Trump’s tax cuts, his chief domestic achievement.

Heitkamp also voted against moving forward on a bill that would make nearly all abortions illegal after 20 weeks of pregnancy, and that’s a sore spot with North Dakota’s active evangelical conservatives.

Cramer said Heitkamp is in a bind. “She has a big dilemma,” he told the AP. “On one hand, she wants to portray herself in North Dakota as a Trump supporter. On the other hand, she wants to be a Democrat and not torque off her big-money, liberal friends. People aren’t falling for it.”