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Armstrong keeps North Dakota's lone US House seat

PBS Newshour

North Dakota Congressman Kelly Armstrong (R) won another two-year term in the US House.

Armstrong had 62 percent of the ballots cast in the Midterm election.

His challenger — Cara Mund (I) — received 38 percent.

Armstrong said he thinks job one in his new term will be to help protect North Dakota’s energy industry. He said President Joe Biden has been attacking coal and oil.

"The White House can continue to walk that stuff back — but he campaigned on it," Armstrong said in an interview. "Everything he's done for two years is pushing it that way."

And Armstrong said he thinks it's about time we believe him on that issue.

"Being on the energy subcommittee of the Energy and Commerce Committee, it's game one — to increase North Dakota's and the United States' oil and gas production, and to try and get our energy inflation under control," Armstrong said.

Armstrong said a second issue will be to secure the southern border.

"Our first three hearings on oversight in Energy and Commerce should be 'fentanyl, fentanyl, fentanyl,'" Armstrong said. "Any community that has a fentanyl overdose is a border community."

Armstrong also said writing a new Farm Bill will take time.

Meanwhile, Mund said she feels “pretty good” about the race she ran against incumbent Republican Representative Kelly Armstrong.

Mund entered the race in August, saying she was motivated by the US Supreme Court decision overturning abortion rights. She said she has no regrets about the race.

"I'm proud that I took no PAC money, especially seeing the incumbent have two-thirds of his campaign funded by PAC money," Mund said in an interview. "The fact is, the support I've gotten, and the people I've met along this path — I'm so proud of what I've done."

Mund said what's so amazing is the number of people who have told her they wouldn't have voted otherwise that supported her campaign.

"That's either because I am a woman candidate, and they felt they had a voice on reproductive health," Mund said. "That was important to them."

Mund said the debates she and Armstrong have had brings those issues to light, and made them transparent.

"I wouldn't have done anything different," Mund said.

Mund is now hoping to start a legal career. She is a graduate of the Harvard Law School, and recently passed the North Dakota bar exam. And she said she plans to stay involved in the issues.

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