Investigative Group

North Dakota Democrats Buy Ads Discouraging Hunters From Voting

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The North Dakota arm of the Democratic Party is running ads on Facebook discouraging hunters from turning out to vote in Tuesday’s midterm elections.

“ATTENTION HUNTERS: If you vote in North Dakota, you may forfeit hunting licenses you have in other states. If you want to keep your out-of-state hunting licenses, you may not want to vote in North Dakota,” read the pair of ads.

The state party ran the ads under a Facebook page titled “Hunter Alerts,” Facebook’s ad archive shows. The “Hunter Alerts” page was created Wednesday, a day before the ads appeared on Facebook.

North Dakota political blogger Rob Port first noted the ads, and said he had never heard of hunters ever losing their licenses after voting in North Dakota. A spokesman for North Dakota Gaming and Fish told Port the same: “We’ve never heard of that.”

The ad discouraging voting comes as North Dakota Democratic Sen. Heidi Heitkamp trails Republican challenger Kevin Cramer, a North Dakota U.S. representative, in her bid for re-election

Heitkamp, whose campaign has made several gaffes in the final stretches of the race, transferred $2.7 million from her campaign to the state party last week.

North Dakota GOP communications director Jake Wilkins slammed Heitkamp for her party’s efforts to discourage hunters from voting.

“Heidi Heitkamp is using her anti-Kavanaugh campaign coffers to suppress voter turnout in North Dakota,” Wilkins told The Daily Caller News Foundation in an email. “On the day she’s starting her de-facto farewell tour, Heitkamp is making it clear to voters that she only cares about winning re-election, not helping her constituents.”

Neither the state party nor the Heitkamp campaign returned requests for comment on the ads.

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