"I've been an outside viewer," Dustin McNally, a Republican candidate for the state Senate in Grand Forks-area District 42, said on this episode of Plain Talk. "I haven't really liked what I've seen.

McNally was speaking about what he's been seeing from North Dakota's Legislature. "It's a lot of negative news. It's a lot of changes in the Republican party, and not for the better," he said.

"I feel like they're not working for me," he added. "I feel like they're working for themselves."

"People are fed up, he continued."

McNally says he'd like to see more focus on pragmatic issues, and less on dramatic culture war topics. "I'm a frugal, fiscally conservative person," he said. "I'm not a headline grabber."

Also on this episode, me and co-host Chad Oban talk about the ominous silence coming from Epic Companies, a West Fargo-based company with projects in just about all of North Dakota's major communities that is widely rumored to be in distress but isn't being forthcoming with information.

We also discussed the state of the Republican U.S. House primary, and how certain legislative races around the state may impact North Dakota's balance of political power.

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U.S. House candidate Rick Becker recently took the unusual step of paying internet personality and trans rights activist Dylan Mulvaney to record a message praising the energy record of his primary rival, Public Service Commisisoner Julie Fedorchak.

The message was done tongue-in-cheek -- though it hasn't sat well with some elements of the MAGA movement who take exception to Becker working with Mulvaney in even a joking way -- but Becker used it to attack Fedorchak's record on coal issues.

"What’s not a laughing matter is how time and again Julie Fedorchack placed radical green energy proposals above the coal industry here in North Dakota," he wrote.

That may have been a mistake. North Dakota's coal industry noticed Becker's stunt, and it has prompted them to endorse Fedorchak in the race.

"That is a statement I can't even wrap my head around," Jason Bohrer, the president of the North Dakota Lignite Energy Council and chair of Lignite's political action committee, said on this episode of Plain Talk. "I don't understand where that statement comes from," he added.

Bohrer told me and co-host Chad Oban that Lignite doesn't typically endorse in partisan primaries, but they feel this situation is different. "This is a place where we have to be clear," Bohrer said. "We do support Julie."

He made it clear that the organization is endorsing Fedorchak in the race.

Bohrer said he didn't want to spend a lot of time "attacking" Becker's record on coal issues while serving in the Legislature, but he did say that Becker "has never been supportive" of the industry's priorities on research and development.

"We had a group of legislators we would go to for those things," Bohrer added. "He wasn't in it."

Also on this episode, state Rep. Michelle Strinden, who is running for Lt. Governor alongside gubernatorial candidate Kelly Armstrong, took questions about being chosen as a running mate, the state of the race, and top issues like education and property taxes.

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A civil war is playing out in the North Dakota Republican Party between traditionally conservative Republicans and MAGA-aligned populists. One front in that war is the NDGOP's legislative primaries, where a group called Citizens Alliance of North Dakota is trying to defeat traditional Republicans.

State Rep. Brandon Prichard, a Republican from Bismarck, is the executive director of Citizens Alliance. His group has been sending mailers to voters suggesting that its preferred candidates in the primaries are backed by incumbents who do not support actually them.

One of the candidates targeted by these tactics, Rep. Jeremy Olson, a first-termer from District 26 who is seeking another term in the state House, joined this episode of Plain Talk. He called Prichard's tactics "absolutely underhanded and unethical.

Also, on this episode, guest co-host Ben Hanson and I and discuss former Fargo Mayor Jon Lindgren's argument that Gov. Doug Burgum is seeking to be disgraced former President Donald Trump's runningmate for the sake of being a moderating influence.

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