U.S. House candidate Trygve Hammer is paying for himself through campaign donations

MINOT – U.S. House of Representatives candidate Trygve Hammer has posted some of the most impressive fundraising numbers in recent memory for a Democratic candidate running in North Dakota. The roughly $1 million he has raised so far is more than any Democratic House candidate since former Assemblyman Earl Pomeroy, who last campaigned in 2010.

But an unusual expense was also revealed in Hammer’s latest quarterly financial report. A salary for himself.

According to Hammer’s report, in the third quarter, July 1 through September 30, he paid himself a total of $11,484.34, including $9,631.86 in payments identified as “salary” and a payment of $1,852.48 described as a mileage allowance .

Hammer campaign spokesperson Sydnee Jewett told me that salary payments to the candidate began at the beginning of the third quarter.

Based on Hammer’s previous disclosure filings, I could find no other payments to the candidate. However, on June 3, there was a $534 refund to Kelli Hammer, the candidate’s wife, for a Hertz rental car.

“I knew we couldn’t win this campaign by half measures and that I couldn’t live without an income,” Hammer said in response to my question about his campaign salary. “My retirement from the Marine Corps Reserve doesn’t start until I turn 60, and after just a few weeks of being around the state meeting with constituents and hearing their concerns, I ran out of paid time off and sick leave. “I don’t have the time I needed for the campaign to spend on fundraising and outreach.”

“I don’t come from money,” he continued. “When North Dakotans tell me about their struggles to make ends meet, there is a way I understand that an independently wealthy candidate could never do that. I have worked all my life and I chose to make the campaign my full-time job and earn a small amount of money. compensation because it was the only way to get the job done, and it certainly won’t make me rich.”

Based on the schedule of salary payments to Hammer, his pay would be just over $46,000 over a year.

I could find no evidence that Hammer’s opponent, Republican Public Service Commissioner Julie Fedorchak, paid herself a salary.

Candidates paying themselves a salary are allowed under federal campaign law, thanks to some recent changes made by the Federal Election Commission, but only for challengers. “As a candidate, a federal office holder may not receive compensation from campaign funds,” the FEC website states. “However, a non-incumbent candidate may receive compensation from his main campaign committee under certain conditions.”

One of those conditions is that a campaign salary cannot exceed 50% of the minimum annual salary paid to a member of the House of Representatives (which is currently $174,000 per year). The other condition is that the campaign salary must be reduced by the amount the candidate earns from outside sources.

Jewett told me Hammer currently has no income outside of the campaign.

Before turning to his campaign full-time, Jewett said he worked at the Quentin N. Burdick Job Corps Center in Minot. Hammer’s biography on his campaign website states that he retired from the U.S. Marine Corps in 2010. Since then, he says he has worked as a pilot, defense contractor, security consultant and science teacher from seventh through 12th grade in college. a rural school, an oil worker and as a railway conductor.

Fedorchak’s campaign did not immediately provide comment when I contacted them for comment.