Who are the declared candidates running for president in 2024?
12. Doug Burgum
Update: On Dec. 4, Doug Burgum released a statement announcing that he was suspending his presidential campaign.
Doug Burgum, the Republican governor of North Dakota, announced his candidacy for president in a Wall Street Journal op-ed last June. “We need a change in the White House. We need a new leader for a changing economy,” he insisted.
Burgum touted his experience starting Great Plains Software in North Dakota: “We ignored those who said North Dakota was too remote to attract the talent needed to build a world-class tech company. By 2001 we had turned Great Plains Software into a billion-dollar company that served more than 140,000 businesses in 132 countries, and we did it with team members from more than 220 small towns across North Dakota.”
Additionally, Burgum reflected on his experience as governor, a position he has held since 2017: “When I ran for governor in 2016, we shook up the political establishment – then cut more than a billion dollars in spending, balanced the budget, unleashed energy production, and diversified the economy. This year we achieved pension reform, helped pass term limits, and enacted the biggest tax cut in state history.”
“I can do the same for America,” he vowed. “The economy must be our top priority. We need to get inflation under control, cut taxes, lower gas prices and reduce the cost of living. We need to stop buying energy from our enemies and start selling it to our friends and allies. America produces the cleanest and safest energy in the world. Anyone who cares about the environment should want all energy produced here.”
While Burgum’s opening pitch focused almost exclusively on the economy, he did include a reference to “woke” ideology, a concern that looms large in the Republican primary: “My hometown, Arthur, N.D., is a small farming community where woke was something you did at 5 a.m.”
Ryan Foley is a reporter for The Christian Post. He can be reached at: [email protected]
