Dickinson Press
When North Dakota voters go to the polls Tuesday, they’ll find a ballot containing eight statewide measures, the most in a quarter century.
That’s the same number that was on the ballot in a special election on Dec. 5, 1989.
The Grand Forks (N.D.) Herald banner headline the morning after reflected the voters’ mood:
No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No.
That election, and perhaps that headline itself, served as an exclamation mark for North Dakota in the 1980s, a time of rapid rural depopulation and economic decline. Even then-Gov. George Sinner — father of the current U.S. House candidate of the same name — was referred to in the state Capitol and in the media and as Gov. Gloom and Doom.