North Dakota’s Democratic Deleagates Split

With the Democratic convention underway, North Dakota delegates have been grabbing some media attention.

It’s because the delegates are split in favor of Sanders.

Right now the delegate count is sitting 13 to five in favor of Sanders.

We reached out to the community in Fargo to see if the locals are as split as the delegates.

There’s no question that Hillary will secure the Democratic nomination at this point, but Sanders supporters haven’t exactly given her their full endorsement just yet.

The appearance of party unity can be an important trait to demonstrate especially coming into a national convention.

Some locals here in Fargo aren’t too worried about North Dakotas divide some even welcome it.

“I think it’s good that people are divided about whether or not they should vote for who us the general population the representatives have been mandated to vote for who they say they should vote for. So I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the representatives that were supposed to vote for Bernie going and to continuing to vote for Bernie,” Charles Clark, a Fargo local says.

Others say the divide now won’t last until November.

“Come voting time every democrat will vote against Trump rather than for any particular person, I really hope that’s the case,” Fargo local Michelle Kresny says.

There’s a lot of varying opinions from people downtown. One woman, Pat Wilber says she thinks the split could be a result of an age-gap in the party.

“I think that younger people and obviously people who are socialist from a philosophical bent would support Bernie. I don’t think there’s a split in terms of not being democrats, but I think Bernie has appealed to a younger generation like you guys and they will remain loyal to Bernie as long as they think there’s some hope,” Wilber says.

In a statement to KVRR Senetor Heidi Heitkamp, a Clinton backer, said, “As I have long said, it’s so important that we have a president who understands and fights for rural America, like Secretary Clinton. I consider standing up for rural America one of my top roles in the U.S. Senate and we need a president who will join in that effort”.

Now Bernie could release his delegates to Clinton but he hasn’t done that just yet.

We’ll just have to wait and see how it plays out in the convention.