An Emerson College Polling survey of North Dakota finds that 38% of residents approve of the job Governor Doug Burgum is doing, while 22% disapprove. Forty percent are neutral toward Burgum. A strong majority of North Dakotans (69%) disapprove of the job Joe Biden is doing as President, while 15% approve. 

Spencer Kimball, Executive Director of Emerson College Polling, said, “While 60% of North Dakota Republicans approve of the Governor and Presidential candidate, a majority, 54%, of independents are neutral towards their governor. Just a quarter of independent voters approve of Burgum, along with 20% of Democrats.”

“When it comes to President Biden in North Dakota, residents have stronger views: 60% of Democrats approve of their party’s president, while 94% of Republicans and 68% of independent voters disapprove of the job Biden is doing.”

In a hypothetical 2024 Senate matchup between Republican incumbent Kevin Cramer and Democrat Katrina Christiansen, 45% of voters would support Cramer, giving him a 26-point advantage over Christiansen, who received 19% of voter support. Nine percent would vote for someone else, and over a quarter of voters (28%) remain undecided. 

In a hypothetical 2024 presidential election matchup, a majority (54%) of North Dakota voters support Donald Trump, while 17% support Joe Biden. Twenty-one percent said they would vote for someone else, and 7% are undecided. 

“Trump’s support is strongest among adults under 25,” Kimball noted, “Sixty-eight percent of young voters support the former president, the closest age group is voters in their 60s, 60% of whom support Trump over Biden.”

Supporters of both Biden and Trump appear to be locked in on their respective candidates. A majority of Trump supporters (58%) in North Dakota could not think of anything the former President could do or say to shake their support, while 55% of Biden supporters said the same of the current President. 

A plurality of North Dakotans, 44%, believe Joe Biden stole the 2020 election. Over a third, 37%, think Biden won the election fair and square, and 20% are unsure. When asked about the 2016 election, a majority (70%) believe Trump won fair and square, while 10% believe Trump stole the election. 

Midwest Study: The North Dakota general election survey is part of a 22-state study on the Midwest region and surrounding states. Additional states will be released over the week, along with the study results by the Middle West Review that is researching perceptions of the Midwest region.

Methodology

The Emerson College Polling North Dakota poll was conducted October 1-4, 2023. The general election sample consisted of 419 voters, with a credibility interval, similar to a poll’s margin of error of +/- 4.8 percentage points. The data sets were weighted by gender, age, race, and education based on the general population using a sample of n=475 participants and allowing the natural fallout to create the sample of n=419. Turnout modeling is based on US Census parameters, and North Dakota voter information by regions (ND SOS). Data was collected by contacting a list of emails provided by Aristotle, along with an online panel of voters provided by Alchemer. 

It is important to remember that subsets based on demographics, such as gender, age, education, and race/ethnicity, carry with them higher credibility intervals, as the sample size is reduced. Survey results should be understood within the poll’s range of scores, and know with a confidence interval of 95% a poll will fall outside the range of scores 1 in 20 times.

This survey was conducted by Emerson College Polling, and questions included in this release are all sponsored by Emerson College. All questions asked in this survey with exact wording, along with full results and cross tabulations can be found here.