Executive Director of North Dakota GOP Resigns Over Past Social Media Posts

The logo for social media platform X, following the rebranding of Twitter, is seen covering the old logo in an illustration taken on July 24, 2023. Dado Ruvic/Reuters

The executive director of the North Dakota Republican Party has resigned just a week after taking the position following reports of his past social media postings.

Dave Roetman, who was announced as the new executive director on Oct. 23, confirmed the news to local radio station WDAY on Oct. 30.

“I am a man who stands by his words. I invite everyone to judge them for themselves,“ he said. ”I do think this was an unnecessary distraction for the Party, and that I help the party best by taking a different path.”

Among the posts in question were repeated comments and interactions with women he found attractive, calling the Democratic Party a party of “proud perverts,” and suggesting a black woman should move to “Wakanda.”

Sandi Sandford, chairwoman of the North Dakota Republican Party, told Forum News Service she hadn’t seen the posts.

“Until you provided we were not aware of these comments,” Ms. Sanford told the reporter in a text message. “They appear to not be his tweets on his account but buried comments to other tweets. Mr. Roetman is an adult and he can answer for himself beyond this.”

Previous Director

Mr. Roetman’s rise and fall follows the resignation of the party’s former executive director, Samantha Holly, who wrote in a resignation letter obtained by Forum News Service that she had “encountered several obstacles that have made it difficult for me to continue working here.”

“I ultimately needed to resign from my executive director position because I continuously felt that I was not able to perform the duties I was initially hired to do,” Ms. Holly told the outlet in a written statement following her resignation, adding that she was not privy to all the decisions being made within the party.

“The operations were getting taken a completely different direction that was not clearly communicated with me many times, or I was intentionally being set up to take the fall for the NDGOP flaws, which makes it hard to function day to day,” she continued. “Executive Committee Members are acting as employees and not in an advisory capacity.”

“I have truly enjoyed the positions that I’ve had over the years at the ND GOP, I always joked I‘d be a lifer and I’d never leave,” she said. “I hope to get myself into doing similar work—supporting people that want to be involved in the political process down the road.”

Ms. Sanford, who was elected to her position of chairwoman in June, has wished Mr. Roetman well and pledged to begin the search immediately for the party’s third executive director within two months.

“It’s a minor setback,” Ms. Sanford said in a statement, according to WDAY. “It will not deter us from effectively SERVING the good people of North Dakota.”

North Dakota is overwhelmingly controlled by Republicans. The party currently holds a 43–4 majority in the state Senate, an 82–12 majority in the House of Representatives, and occupies every statewide elected office and congressional seat.

North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum is also an outside candidate for the Republican Party’s presidential nomination.