(upbeat music) - Hello and welcome to "Prairie Pulse".

Coming up a little bit later in the show, we'll tour the International Peace Garden.

But first our guest joining us now is Dr. Nicholas Bauroth.

Dr. Bauroth, thanks so much for joining us.

You are from the North Dakota State University, Political Science Department and you're here to talk about the election races coming up this season.

- [Bauroth] I certainly am.

Thank you for having me here.

- Before we get to that, tell the folks a little bit about yourself and maybe your background.

- Well, again, thank you for having me here.

I always like to discuss politics on a brisk October.

I'm at the Chair of the Department of Political Science at NDSU and I've been here in North Dakota since 2004.

So pay attention to local and state politics, that's my area and such and I've been teaching since then.

So yes, I've done this before, it's always a pleasure to come here and talk to you about the regional local politics.

- Well, now you say teaching, what is it you teach in particular?

- Well, my goodness, I have a focus on state and local politics, but most students fear me because I teach the political ideologies course too, that they have to take in their first couple years so.

- Well, you know, we bring you here every couple of years, of course, as the races heat up.

We're in the midterm elections right around the corner.

How are you seeing the national races right now?

- Well, the way I'm looking at the national races is that if you're the Democrats, you're starting to sweat right now because they had a really good summer as the incumbent party can have in the midterm elections where it seemed like people were rallying around their candidates that they were going to perhaps come out of this elections maybe even a winner and such.

But all the polls that I'm seeing, all the sort of conversations are going on is that all those important races in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and so on, are getting closer and closer that the Democrats who are ahead are suddenly within the margin of air.

So if you're of a nervous type right now, it's really touch and go for the Democrats and it could turn out I mean, they could lose a bunch of elections by very narrow margin and the end result is that this could be well, a disastrous midterm election for them.

- And the not always uncommon in midterms as we talk, have talked about how much is inflation affecting the Democrat situation and President Biden?

- Well, I think the inflation situation is affecting them quite a lot.

When you're looking at polls inflation, economic issues tend to be the top thing that people worry about.

Abortion's higher than it usually is, but it's usually second or third place.

And so you see a lot of polls saying, Hey, the inflation this sort of downturn the economy, they hold the president very much personally for it.

So you know, we recently just had some numbers released by the federal government saying that the inflation rate is still very high, that it hasn't dropped at all and we're seeing that as were coming to the last few weeks of the election.

This is nothing but bad news for the Democrats.

If this was a year where the economy was okay and not, seemed to be in such a bad situation, they could actually do quite well this election, but unfortunately for the Democrats, the economy anyway that you look at, it looks very troubled.

And again, the polls show that that's gonna be one of the things that determines who wins these elections.

- Can you talk about the impact Donald Trump still seems to have on Republican primaries and the candidates?

- Well, he seems to have a huge impact on a number of the states that are sort of touch and go over in terms of whose wins and Georgia, in Pennsylvania, Donald Trump's recommended candidate has been nominated by the Republican Party, is the person he's endorsed.

And that sometimes creates problems for the Republicans in that state because they're not always the most obvious choice, the easiest winners and such.

So we'll see how it plays out, it's not as if any of those state Republican parties have rejected these candidates.

Once they've got the endorsement, won the primary, they've rallied around them.

But there's a number of Republicans that seems to indicate that Donald Trump made it more difficult for them 'cause some of the candidates are gonna be harder to win.

But Donald Trump has still the support of most Republicans, most Republican supporters give him quite high margins and such and so this person's going to say, Hey, this is the candidate for me.

While it's usually, it's oftentimes enough to swing those primaries.

So he's still a big player even though he's not on the ballot.

- And despite all this and you hit on it a little bit, it appears Democrats might hold on to the Senate of course, key races and key states are making headlines and of course, you got candidates like Dr Herschel Walker, what are your thoughts on those races and how they're playing out?

I mean they're in the news a lot and back and forth on how it's going to turn out.

- I mean, they're gonna be record breakers in terms of spending, in terms how much attention they get because the Democrats control the Senate right now is as narrow as you can get 50, 50 and having the vice president and so they just sort of hold court.

They just sort of don't lose any candidate in any race election then they have a really good chance of controlling the Senate and accomplishing stuff here and there in the next couple years cause that would be the big fear if you're Joe Biden, it's just two years of fighting across the board and the Democrats maintain the Senate then at the very least they can sort of pick and choose who they want to nominate and put into place in terms of the federal courts.

So if the Democrats end up maintaining the house and most people would look at this as like a tremendous win for the Democrats maintaining control of the Senate when it's so tight and well, who knows, maybe even the house that would be almost unprecedented.

I mean, you have to go back pretty much to 2002 before the last time where the incumbent party did quite well in the midterm elections.

So we're all watching it very closely, but again, it's got so many different parts, moving parts going on, it's kind of hard to make predictions about what's gonna happen next.

I mean, I'll take a crack at it, but it's always done with a grain of salt.

- Well, exactly that which leads me into, we're gonna ask you a couple of crystal ball, maybe two or three crystal ball type questions.

What if the Democrats lose both the House and the Senate?

Do you think then that the Democrats would approach President Biden and ask him, not to seek reelection in 24?

- Well, I mean, it would be a lot of things that would happen if the Republicans got both house and the Senate.

Anything up to and including impeaching President Biden and there's all sorts of stuff that could go on with negotiations over budgets and such.

So if you were the Democrats, if you're President Biden, if the Republicans were get control of Congress, it would be lowered expectations in terms of what you could get done.

The problem is that replacing Joe Biden doesn't necessarily, doesn't really solve the Democrat's problems.

They don't have, you know, they have the presidency and the economy's doing poorly and that's always gonna be a problem no matter which party, what time you're gonna be there.

So replacing Joe Biden doesn't save solve that and also who do you replace him with?

There's no obvious sort of person that you'd say that this person is the leader of the Democratic party.

I mean, the last time that there was a real contested nomination for president was back in 19, oh my goodness, 1976 if I remember, oh, 1980, I'm sorry.

Jimmy Carter and Ted Kennedy.

And Ted Kennedy was running against Jimmy Carter in the primary, but he was like one of the natural leaders in the party, you could look to him as one of the leaders.

You don't really have that for the Democrats now.

One person that they could unite beyond and legitimately think that they could replace a sitting president.

- Well, let's shift gears, I guess and move maybe to more regional races.

North Dakota, US House.

Of course we're Democrat, of course Mark Hagan, he dropped out leaving only incumbent Kelly Armstrong and then independent Cara Mund who is challenging.

What can you say about that race?

- Well first of all, I'll have to complain that we don't do regular polling in North Dakota for the statewide elections.

You get some polls from the candidates organizations, but those are real suspects.

So if I do any predicting, it's like I almost have no polls to work from at all.

But I'll do it nonetheless because well, I guess that's what I do for a living.

I think that the house election is in the States kind of unusual like there's something having an independent, a famous independent get involved in election was kind of unexpected.

It's kind of hard to see anybody except the Republican Kelly Armstrong winning the house election, but it's something different and so people are paying attention to it to see well, does her particular issue you know, abortion rights, does that have a big play in this state or does she being something of a celebrity, does that help out and such?

And it's really hard to say again, no polls, but you gotta think that it's hard to see how she would do worse if there was just a Republican, I mean just a Democrat, how she could do worse than Democrat because again, this is the state where the Democratic parties had real difficulties getting good challengers for statewide office and that includes the House.

So in terms of the election, I expect Kelly Armstrong will win by a pretty safe margin.

I don't think that it's gonna be all that tight, but when you have Democrats getting 30 or so percent in the last few elections on these statewide things, even getting 40% in other states that would be a total blowout in this state if she was to get 40%, that would be like, oh my goodness, that's way above and beyond what I expected.

So something like that could happen, she could do better than maybe the Democrats have done recently with the candidate they nominated, but it's hard to see her actually winning it, particularly since the Democrat dropped out.

You know, ideally you have several people splitting a vote and it's not head to head, but that didn't happen for whatever reason.

- Yeah.

Well, okay, so, but if as you mentioned, if Mund does lose, do you think she's setting herself up for a future in politics and in other races?

- That's an interesting thought 'cause I'm not quite sure what her career path, what she wants to do with her career, go into broadcasting politics or whatever the case might be.

If she does decide to go into politics, it is sort of like well, a good start, you do get name right recognition or if statewide recognition for your name and you get the sense that you're not a beginner anymore and that this isn't some sort of just for fun sort of candidacy instead of like really wanting to win.

So that would be kind of interesting to see that the only problem is, is well what's her natural home?

Where does she go with the Democrats?

Does she remain independent?

What does she do when she's not running for Congress?

So there are some possibilities there.

Again, it'd be interesting to see what happens because we haven't had too much luck or success with the third party candidates or independent candidates sticking around for the long term.

And so again, it'd be interesting to see how that resolves itself.

- Okay.

And of course the Senate race with a three-way battle between incumbent Republican John Hoven, Democrat Katrina Christiansen and independent Rick Becker.

Can you talk a little bit about that race?

- That again is a race that it's really hard to see Hoven losing or even getting below 50%.

I mean again, it's not like the Republican party has some sort of magic that going here, but the Democrats have had a hard time getting resources and raising money and attention for their candidates even if they think they have a good candidate.

You know, Christensen looks like she would is a good candidate.

But I mean it just becomes such a Republican state at the statewide level.

Now there is always a outside possibility that Becker sort of splits some of the votes, Christiansen gets all the democratic votes and it gets to be something closer particularly if Hogan gets below 50%.

But again, it's really hard to see that happening.

I hate to poo poo her chances, but I think what would be interesting to see if that, if Becker does take anything that seems to be a Republican vote outta Hoven.

So if he's below 60%, if he's below 55%, it would seem that he would've had, Becker would've had some constituency within the Republican party.

So part of it is also seeing with Becca coming out of this as a new political figure in the state, if he does well, gets some sort of percentage votes, makes it a closer race than expected that could happen.

Or does he just become an also ran.

So it's interesting to see because again, Becker I think wants to have a continuing career, how that works out well, that will be again another post-election sort of subject matter for consideration.

- Sure.

Well let's turn our attention to the attorney general race with Drew Wrigley and Tim Lamb facing off with each other.

Can tell us about how you see that race?

- [Bauroth] Well again, I'm gonna have to lean with the Republican Cross for a statewide election, but normally if this was a state where there was two even parties, it would be kind of up in the air because there's been a lot of stories back and forth about the Republican and how he's replaced the old guard and I could, you could see it being a little closer if in if there was a Democratic party that had time and money to promote a candidate.

So Drew Wrigley seems like he has a pretty clear shot, although again, there's stuff to ask questions about, it's not like he's a blank slate, you know?

And so if the Democrat could get the election going about Wrigley's well communications with the national government, with the Trump administration doing the aftermath, the elections and such, it could be a little bit more interesting.

But again, you know, this is where I sound like a broken record where I say, well, it could be interesting but again, my prediction is that the Republican will win and probably pretty handly in this time around.

- And a lot of that you lean toward, so what has happened to the Democratic party in North Dakota?

You know, was it just Dagan, Conrad and Palmeri that they were so strong in bringing home the bacon so to speak and now there just doesn't seem to be anybody that carries the mantra for the Democrats out there?

- [Bauroth] There's part of that, part of that is too is that we're much more polarized as a voting public deal as the electorate right now.

You know, back in the nineties and early odds you could have candidates very easily vote for Republicans for governor or for State House and Senate and still split their ticket and vote for the Democrats for the Congress and such.

And it was a very, it was from outside of state seeing the Democrats win the congressional delegation for North Dakota was always seen as a bit of an oddity like how it came about.

And once the Democrats Palmeri and the rest started retiring, it seemed as if things kind of reverted to the norm that people expect.

I mean the same thing happened in South Dakota as well.

You got a lot more polarized where people think of state elections for Senate it's more of a, a national thing then rather than the old case where you might have been that you had met Palmeri before and liked him or that you could, you might have disagreed with the Democrats, but maybe Dagan did a good job with agriculture and farming.

Well, that doesn't matter much anymore.

And so if most people kind of had Republican feelings and they were voting for a Democrat, when it nationalizes, when it polarizes, suddenly they're not going to even give the Democrats the time of day.

So that's part of it, you know, again, once Dagan and the other delegates are congressional delegation left, it also seemed as if the Democrats lost something, not their soul or something, but something about them that never got replaced.

There seemed as if their candidates had more and more difficulty making a splash in the state and raising money and having much impact in terms of polls.

And it's kind of hard to say exactly what happened, but I think the polarization where you would, maybe in the state you might once have given a Democrat, a second thought, now it's like you're either a Democrat or Republican and you don't cross over.

- Yeah, we don't have a lot of time left.

A couple of subjects kinda like to hit on, are you concerned based on the 2020 presidential election, deny in some quarters that going forward there'll be a growing number of concerns about election results.

- That is a worry because a lot of democracy, I mean, you'd like to think it's the constitution, these rules and regulations and you just go through your checklist.

But a lot of it's like also based on the idea that well good faith sort of argument, the acceptance of results and such.

And so when you see a number of people run and based on their ideas that elections are stolen or that they might be, it is concerning because again, if people don't, if you start, if the elections start losing legitimacy, people start seeing them as sort of like, I don't know, sort of up for grabs in ways that the common voter doesn't have impact on that's just gonna be bad for our democracy, that's gonna make it bad for having faith in our government, having faith in Congress and such.

So it is quite disturbing and so how it will play out well, again, I'll have to wait and see, but again, you hope these things would resolve themselves and the fact that we're still talking it after two years again means that there have been some pretty fundamental changes in American politics.

- So real quick, is the political climate of this country as bad as the media portrays it or not?

Can you talk about that just briefly?

- Well, how they say one of these expressions out there is that Twitter isn't real life that you know, that you could see a lot of the disputes and people not getting along, gives a lot of prominence.

I think a lot of people don't really think about politics on a day-to-day basis.

Like, where they see their neighbors or coworker and say, hey, that's a Democrat or Republican.

I mean if they start talking about it of course, it all comes up.

But I think most people maybe aren't like us, I spend all my time thinking about politics, you talk about it all the times and I don't think people follow it quite that level.

I mean, they'll be much more concerned on November when the election day is coming here, but there's a lot of people who can take a break from politics which maybe sometimes is a healthy thing.

- We are out of time.

If people want more information, where's the best place for them to go?

- Well there's a lot of places, but fivethirtyeight.com is a good one if you're trying to get polls and some sort of discussion about the political tendencies of American voter and it's pretty even handed as these things go.

So I always recommend people get to go that and see how they take a look at the all the polls from across the nation.

- Well, thanks for joining us today and thanks for all your insight.

- Well, thank you for having me.

- Stay tuned for more.

(bright upbeat music) Located in the center of North America, the International Peace Garden has been a living symbol of the peaceful relationship between the United States and Canada since 1922.

Join us as we celebrate peace through art, music, and nature in this profile.

(upbeat music) - [Tim] Well, there's a lot of highlights here at the International Peace Garden, but most folks come each summer to see the 25 acres or so of formal manicured gardens.

There's big displays of annual flowers in a big sunken garden that has a lot of perennial flowers.

On top of that we have a year round conservatory full of an incredible collection of cacti and succulents.

There's a peace chapel with incredible quotes about peace and cooperation on its walls.

Another thing is the 9/11 memorial that has remnants of the Twin towers and what happened that day on 9/11, 2001.

The conception of the International Peace Garden is really a pretty fascinating story.

In 1929, a collection of gardeners through the National Association of Gardeners met in New York City.

They were primarily from Toronto and New York and they thought it was important that as two peaceful countries living along the longest unfortified border, that that peace and coexistence be recognized in the form of a garden on the border.

And it's truly special 'cause there is no other international peace garden, this is the only one and it is a tribute to a lot of folks in the twenties and thirties who really pushed for the International Peace Garden to be centrally located in the continent rather than on the East coast or the west coast.

(soft tempo music) What happened this year at our 90th anniversary was really wonderful because it came at a time following two years of low visitation due to the pandemic where we were able to bring a lot of people on site for a big weekend to celebrate 90 years of the international Peace Garden.

And there were all sorts of vendors, makers, musicians.

We had traditional indigenous and Metis, a lot of demonstrations and storytelling.

When you have this much space and this beautiful of a setting, you can do a lot and bring a lot of people here.

And everything you see here is its own form of art, it's a beautiful setting that really contrasts nicely with the surrounding prairie.

So when you think of the formal manicured parts of the garden, we really try to make sure that the edges of that melt in nicely with the surrounding forest.

And then as we start to bring in more sculpture, more performing arts, really just trying to highlight how wonderful it is to appreciate art when you are outside and in a more natural setting.

(bright upbeat music) Probably in August we start thinking about what next year's layout of the flowers will be 'cause it really is an annual process that begins right after, right as the season's wrapping up.

And so this year we wanted to recognize international music camp and all the music and arts that they bring to the grounds because they were off the last two summers due to the pandemic.

The relationship between the International Peace Garden and the International Music Camp is one that goes back almost 70 years and it's a special one because the International Peace Garden is not the International Peace Garden without International Music Camp.

- [Christine] So the International Music Camp is for campers, mostly ages 10 to 19, but we also have a four day adult camp at the end of our season and it's just so fun to see people of all ages coming together to make music and art.

When you walk around IMC today, you're gonna see orchestra, so string players practicing all over the place.

We also have band happening this week, so there'll be a concert band folks practicing and for art, we have sculpture, painting and cartooning happening.

So campers will come and they'll work on their art and at the end of the week they either put on an art show or a concert, kind of a capstone experience of their week.

It's really incredible what happens when you have faculty who are so excited to work with the campers and then the campers who are so excited to be here and just the magic of them all working together always produces amazing results.

- I think for a lot of young people coming to the International Music Camp is actually a really validating experience.

So often we maybe go through our life and we think, oh, I'm the only person that really enjoys this, but when you come to the International Music Camp and when our campers come here, they're surrounded by people with similar interests, whether it's their counselors or their teachers or the other people in their class.

They really get a lot of validation of like, it is okay that you have a passion or an interest in this, and then that goes back home with them and that really encourages that growth change, that progress within communities, and I think it helps make all of our communities large and small a better place, a healthier place, and a stronger place too.

(bright upbeat music) The Peace Gardens has been a beautiful and important factor in what the International Music Camp is being in between the two countries, truly being international between nations and in music and the arts we're devoted to bringing people together from different backgrounds and different life experiences and what a great place and what better place to do that at a location that is known for promoting and celebrating peace across the world.

- The International Peace Garden is such a special place because there's really nothing like it in the world.

We're on an international border, we're funded by and really honored and shared by North Dakota and Manitoba and Americans and Canadians as a whole.

It's really incredible to think that so many people come from all over because they really see the value in a place that stands for peace, that wants to promote and advocate for peace and to do that through a natural setting given that we're in the heart of the continent close to the geographical center of North America, it really kind of brings home the theme and how important peace is to all of us to be centered.

And that's one thing that I think draws so many people to the International Peace Garden.

(bright upbeat music) - Well, that's all we have on "Prairie Post" for this week.

And as always, thanks for watching.

(bright upbeat music) - [Narrator] Funded by the North Dakota Council on the Arts and by the members of "Prairie Public".