Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND) lost her re-election bid Tuesday night to Republican Kevin Cramer. In her concession speech, she channeled poet Alfred Lord Tennyson’s famous line, “’Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.”
Heitkamp directed part of her concession speech toward the young voters who have become engaged over the past couple of years.
“What I really want to leave you with is — for so many young people who got engaged. It seems like such a bitter thing to lose a race, but the worse thing would be to not ever run at all,” Heitkamp said. “To not ever try. To simply say, ‘that’s too hard,’ or ‘the state’s too red,’ or there’s always an excuse down the line to not try.”
It’s actually a good message for anyone just getting involved in politics. I remember the first campaign I worked on. We lost. For me it was devastating because I’ve always tried to plan out my future career, and I saw myself going to Washington to intern in congress and work for politicians. That all changed that night — I thought. Since then I’ve learned that there’s always another campaign. There’s always another chance and there’s always another path.
For Heitkamp, her fate was sealed with her vote against Brett Kavanaugh for Supreme Court. She was already trailing in the polls at the time of the confirmation vote and the people of North Dakota wanted to see Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court. Heitkamp still voted “no.” In her concession speech, she ignored this fact to claim she had represented the people of North Dakota.
“I went to Washington, D.C., not to rubber stamp any political party, not to take an easy, easy decision. I went to Washington, D.C., to represent the people of North Dakota the best way that I knew. And that’s what I did,” she said.
To some extent, she was right. She voted with President Donald Trump about half the time. But the Kavanaugh vote really mattered, and she failed her voters.
The final nail in the coffin came, however, when her campaign posted the names and locations of women who were allegedly victims of sexual assault and domestic violence. Many of the women said they did not give permission for their names to be used by the campaign, and at least one said she wasn’t even a victim.