A freshman North Dakota Republican state representative told RedState that he was surprised to see his state’s Governor Doug J. Burgum was under consideration by former President Donald J. Trump for the GOP’s vice-presidential nomination—given his opposition to the conservative agenda in the Flickertail State.

“I came in obviously toward the end of his time being governor,” said state Rep. Matt Heilman, who represents the chamber's 7th District, which includes the northern districts in the state's capital, Bismark.

“What I would say in my experience being elected in 2022 and after, he seemed very unpopular within the Republican caucus for one,” said Heilman. 

Soon. pic.twitter.com/c5MBuprIdY

— Rep. Matt Heilman (@MattHeilman7) April 9, 2024

The state representative said no one in North Dakota thought he would be elected to the White House when he announced June 7. 

“Nobody thought that he had a chance,” he said. “Everybody thought he was going for either vice president or Agriculture or Energy.”

Even inside the Republican cloakrooms, there was skepticism, he said.

“I mean, the guy was pulling at, what? Maybe one percent, that’s not even an exaggeration,” he said. “He never had a shot to begin with--nothing that people didn't know already--I think you don't even have to be a political insider to know that he had never had a chance.”

The freshman state representative said Burgum campaigned much more conservative than he governed.

“He presented himself as a Trump guy,” he said. “He came out to be a lot more liberal than people thought he would be when he first got elected,” he said. “I think that bothered a lot of people.”

Heilman: Burgum worked against conservatives in legislature

Like 25 other states, North Dakota has a unified government, with Republican control of the governor’s office and both chambers in the legislature, in addition to having all its statewide offices held by the GOP.

Heilman said that, given the Republican Party's dominance at the statehouse, he was surprised that the governor would veto a bill at times, given that everything could be worked out intra-party.

“The real power that he had during a legislative session was that he had enough people in his corner in the legislature where we didn't have the power to override his vetoes,” he said. 

“I think that's where his power really was; it was that he had enough people in his corner, and we couldn't really overturn any vetoes. I think we had one overturned last session," he said. 

“Essentially, he just has his own PAC, and it's called the Dakota Leadership PAC, and he would just dump dollars into it,” he said. “He would drag people's names through the mud, and try to get his people in office and just to do whatever he wanted.”

Burgum brought big money to North Dakota politics like people had not seen before, Heilman said. “The average legislative race will cost you between $10,000 and $15,000, and when he is dumping over $3 million into races, it's quite a big mountain to climb over.”

The state representative said there emerged in the legislature a Burgum faction and a grassroots faction, he said.

“I don't know entirely what his goals were if all those people were to get elected, but in 2022, I think the grassroots candidates won for the most part,” he said.

“The reason I ran was because there were no good conservative candidates standing up for what was right, and I was really aggravated by the medical mandates and the liberalness that I experienced in higher education,” Heilman said. 

“I graduated from Bismarck State College in May of 2022, and currently I'm online through Western Governor's University,” he said. “Western Governor's University has been a great college so far. I've had no problems with them.”

Heilman said that although North Dakota was a rural state, he represented a district, House-07, without any farms.

“I live in the capital in Bismarck, District Seven is the north end of Bismarck, primarily southeast Bismarck, but stretches over west to the river along the Missouri River,” he said. 

“It’s pretty urban, a lot of small business owners--I mean, it's North Dakota, so everybody's, for the vast majority, everybody's white and Christian,” he said. 

Like in other conservative states, Heilman said the local Republican Party was hostile to conservatives, and MAGA candidates and agenda items.

“The North Dakota GOP leadership changed in June of 2023, and we now have conservative leadership, and our RNC national committeeman and committeewoman are both total patriots for the elected people on the state committee level,” he said.

“We finally saw everything come together, but we still have a lot of work to do,” he said.

“For example, we should not have any Republicans voting against pro-life legislation--I think that is totally absurd, and we shouldn't be having trouble passing legislation to ban pornography in public schools in a super-majority Republican legislature,” he said.

Hielman said Burgam surprised him and other conservatives, especially when he vetoed legislation that would have protected minors from being exposed to pornography, but that veto was sustained. 

“Everybody, for the most part, was for the bill, but for whatever reason, he was dead set against it,” he said. 

“It did kind of get ugly towards the end, and we had to fight the bureaucracy against it too, as well, which was unfortunate,” he said. “It did get bitter, and I don't know why Governor Burgum opposed that bill so much.”

The state representative said the governor and his allies used a twist on conservatism against conservatives.

“I think the common argument against a lot of conservative legislation is that they say: ‘Oh, we're for limited government, so we can't pass anything that's conservative, so we just want to kill it.’ That's their excuse most of the time,” he said.

Another controversial veto came when the governor turned down a bill that would have protected state and local employees from being coerced into pronouns associated with someone’s expressed gender, not biological gender, he said. That veto was also sustained.

“We attempted to override every veto, and I believe there might've been eight or seven vetoes,” he said.

“A lot of conservative legislation will get watered down because the legislature really is run by moderates,” he said. 

The finance student said it is bizarre to have a conservative state with GOP super majorities, and yet Burgum and the state’s Republican leadership oppose conservatism.

“The state Senate of North Dakota has 47 state senators, and they are only four Democrat state senators, and we overrode one veto the entire time,” he said. “In the House, we have 12 Democrats out of 94 representatives, and we can barely override one veto. It's just absurd. There's no excuse for it.’”

Heilman: Armstrong a lock to succeed Burgum

Heilman said Burgum is not termed out because the term limits passed in 2022 do not apply to him. He declined to run for a third term, so his lieutenant governor, Tammy Miller, is running to succeed him. However, he expects the state’s single congressman, Republican Rep. Kelly Armstrong, to win the June 11 primary.

“I think Kelly has a pretty good relationship with the legislature,” he said. 

“Kelly has always been kind to me, always listens,” he said. 

“He's given me pretty solid advice, and I have his criticisms about some key votes when he was in Congress, just like anybody else, but I think Kelly Armstrong will be a better governor than Governor Burgum.”