North Dakota, the second-largest U.S. oil producer, re-elected Agriculture Commissioner Doug Goehring on Tuesday, as voters opted to retain the status quo for a position that helps regulate the state’s burgeoning energy industry. The state sits atop the prolific Bakken shale formation and produces more than 1.1 million barrels of oil a day, helping the United States reduce foreign imports of crude and sharply boosting North Dakota’s prominence on the international stage. Goehring, first appointed to the position in 2009 and elected in his own right in 2010, beat Ryan Taylor, the Democrat-NPL party’s candidate, by a surprisingly large margin for a race political scientists had considered too close to call. With roughly 90 percent of precincts reporting, Goehring received 57 percent of the vote to Taylor’s 43 percent. With a legislature that meets only every two years, North Dakota gives an unusual […]