A Democratic candidate for North Dakota’s only open House seat suspended his campaign on Sunday after pressure from his party to step aside for a pro-abortion candidate.
Mark Haugen, a pro-life Democrat, shared his resignation announcement on Twitter. He told local outlets that he “doesn’t see a viable path forward to winning the race" for North Dakota's seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. A pro-abortion candidate, former Miss America Cara Mund, recently entered the race last month.
“When the Supreme Court decision came out, that further kind of solidified that there may be some issues here with my candidacy. I’ve been pro-life since the 1990s. I never hid it. I ran for the Legislature in 1996,” Haugen told local outlet KFYR. He added that he received several phone calls from Democrats asking him to consider pulling out of the race, especially after Mund announced her candidacy in recent weeks.
KFYR noted that Mund is running as a pro-abortion Independent and must submit 1,000 signatures to the Secretary of State’s office to qualify for the November ballot.
Last month, the Associated Press reported that Mund said the Supreme Court’s ruling overturning Roe v. Wade prompted her to run for Congress.
Having the government “make women have to travel across state lines [for abortion] is going to impact women, and women of lower social economic status,” Mund said.
Townhall reported late last month that North Dakota’s only abortion clinic, Red River Women’s Clinic, relocated over state lines to Minnesota.
AP noted that Mund’s abortion position “runs contrary” to North Dakota’s conservative voters. It added that abortion could be a “spoiler” for Haugen among Democrats because he is Catholic and opposes abortion.
In June 2017, Mund was crowned Miss North Dakota. A few months later, she was crowned Miss America 2018, becoming the first contestant from the state to win the competition. She recently graduated from Harvard Law School.
Earlier this year, Townhall covered how several Democrats like Sen. Elizabeth Warren (MA), Sen. Bernie Sanders (VT), and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY) threw their support behind Jessica Cisneros, a pro-abortion Democrat who was running to unseat Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX). Cuellar, a pro-life Democrat, won the election.