Burgum: The Short Goodbye

By BRUCE LOWITT

North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum announced Monday that he’s ending his presidential campaign, stunning Republican Party officials who said they didn’t know he had been a candidate.

“I remember watching preparations for our first debate in Milwaukee back in August and seeing this guy standing behind a podium on the far end,” said Drew McKissick, co-chair of the Republican National Committee, “and I figured he was from maintenance or one of Fox’s people checking a microphone or maybe a stand-in for the TV guys checking the camera angles.

“But he never moved from that spot and, to tell you the truth, I don’t remember anything he said, except I think that he liked Fargo. I assume he meant the movie or maybe the TV show. I know (Vivek) Ramaswamy was out of control and (Ron) DeSantis crashed and burned,” McKissick said. “But Burgum? I dunno.”

Burgum, who built a fortune as a software entrepreneur, declared his candidacy in June and spent $12.2-million of his own money on the campaign. But according to private pollsters in Bismarck, North Dakota, his recognition factor among Republican voters never climbed above two percent and in a late November survey of likely voters he came in second to the Western Meadowlark, the state bird.

“I can’t complain that the money was wasted,” Burgum said. “For one thing, that’s only one-point-two percent of the $1.1-billion I’m worth. For another, there’s now probably a few hundred more people who now know who’s the governor of North Dakota. I bet that’s more than the number of people who know who’s the governor of South Dakota.”