EXCLUSIVE—On Wednesday night, North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum will be taking his pitch to a national debate-watching audience live from Milwaukee and, on the same day, the pro-Burgum Best of America PAC will be launching a new broadcast ad in Iowa seeking to capitalize on and bolster messages the small-town kid-turned-successful entrepreneur and governor has been highlighting throughout his campaign.
Shared first with Townhall, the new ad titled "Innovation" emphasizes Burgum's roots that go back to "a small town in North Dakota" of just "three hundred people," one where "woke was something we used to do when you started every day at 5:00 a.m."
From those humble beginnings rooted in "small-town values," the ad reminds Iowa voters that Burgum "built a billion-dollar company, hiring small-town kids, and creating thousands of jobs" along the way.
The same success and lessons from his own entrepreneurial journey, the ad implies, Burgum will bring to the Oval Office to "turn the economy around by cutting taxes, eliminating wasteful spending, and putting innovation over regulation."
Amid America's current economic woes, Burgum is "a new leader for a changing economy," one who will "get some small-town common sense back in Washington," the ad argues.
Some may hold doubts about Burgum's performance heading into Wednesday's debate and the early state contests ahead, but such questions are nothing new to Burgum or his campaign. After all, many at the launch of his campaign wondered whether he'd qualify for even the first GOP debate, but he did.
To get there, he used an unorthodox — but almost certainly more cost-effective than other candidates' efforts — ploy to give $20 "Biden Economic Relief Gift Cards" in return for $1 dollar donations to his campaign, and it worked.
Before throwing his hat in the presidential ring, Burgum defied expectations in North Dakota to win the state's Republican gubernatorial primary before defeating his Democrat opponent in a landslide to become governor in 2016 with more than 75 percent of the vote.
And, even earlier in his career, those who may have discounted his small software company were proven wrong when Burgum eventually sold it to Microsoft for more than $1 billion.
"Governor Burgum will turn the American economy around by cutting taxes, eliminating wasteful spending, and putting innovation over regulation" while bringing "small-town values to Washington, DC where he'll use his experience as a conservative entrepreneur and business leader to eliminate red tape and kick-start American innovation," Best of America PAC spokesperson Emily Benavides said. "This new ad will ensure that Iowans know that Governor Burgum is the candidate to turn around our economy and unleash America's potential."
The Best of America PAC ad will begin airing in Iowa on Wednesday and is the pro-Burgum PAC's third TV ad in a campaign launched in early August aimed at bolstering Burgum's profile in early states as the countdown continues to the January 15, 2024 first-in-the-nation Iowa caucuses.
According to fresh polling released this week by The Des Moines Register, "Burgum’s total Iowa footprint adds up to nearly 1 in 4 likely Republican caucusgoers (23%)" which includes two percent saying he's their first choice, three percent saying he's their second choice, and 18 percent who say they're "actively considering him."