Senate candidate Potter withdraws

BISMARCK (AP) — North Dakota Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Tom Potter said Friday he’s withdrawing from the race.

Potter was given little chance of beating the party’s other Senate candidate, former Attorney General Heidi Heitkamp.

North Dakota Democrats will endorse their favored Senate candidate at the party’s convention in Grand Forks next month.

Potter is a pastor at a Presbyterian church in Red Lake Falls, Minn., and a former finance professor at the University of North Dakota. He is married to former North Dakota Democratic state Rep. Louise “Weezie” Potter.

In a statement Friday, Tom Potter said, “If I’m going to lose an election, I want it to be to someone of Heidi’s stature.”

U.S. Rep. Rick Berg and Bismarck businessman Duane Sand are competing for the Republican Senate endorsement.

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