Wirth Declares for U.S. House, May Face Democratic Primary vs. Raver

The Minnehaha County Democrats gave us a masked striptease this week, promising to lay bare one Democrat’s intention to run for U.S. House at its Friday “Night of Many Ha-Has” fundraiser. Reading the Web and the papers might have inclined us to believe Whitney Raver from Custer was coming east to make a big announcement.

But no! Stepping onto the stage and stripping off the mask is Brian Wirth from Dell Rapids. Wirth ran for District 25 Senate last year as an independent before getting back with the party label and winning the position of treasurer for the Minnehaha County Dems.

Perhaps anticipating the primary battle with Raver, Wirth played the Democratic crowd with good partisan lines about Republican lies and Democratic values:

He lost to state Sen. Kris Langer in District 25 last year and it’s a “very heavily gerrymandered” district where candidates can only win if they’re Republican. He said he wants to bring attention to the problems of gerrymandering with his campaign.

He said he also wants to also bring attention to Republicans’ tax increases, and Democrats’ work to support health care and higher wages for residents.

”(Democrats are) the only party that stands for all human rights,” he said [Lisa Kaczke, “Dell Rapids Financial Crime Specialist Announces Run for South Dakota’s U.S. House Seat,” that Sioux Falls paper, 2019.08.23].

Democrats say what they stand for; Republicans say one thing to get elected, then do the opposite in office—focus on that message, Brian, and you’ve got the job.

A Wirth-Raver contest would be the first Democratic primary for statewide office since 2014, when Susan Wismer and Joe Lowe fought for our gubernatorial nomination. In that East River/West River contest, Wismer-East beat Lowe-West 55.5% to 44.5%. But the East River candidate in that primary had the advantage of Legislative incumbency. In this potential 2020 primary, Wirth and Raver stand on equal footing as one-time unsuccessful Legislative candidates. Wirth won 20% of the vote against incumbent Senator Kris Langer; Raver won 13% in the four-way race for two District 30 House seats against incumbent Republicans Tim Goodwin and Julie Frye-Mueller, behind fellow Democrat Karen McGregor’s 15%. On the hard count, 2,684 people have marked Raver’s name on a ballot; 1,931 have marked Wirth’s name at the polls. Raver thus has a larger base of people to whom she can say, “You’ve voted for me before; do it again!” But as of August 1, Raver’s home county had 1,148 registered Democrats, while Wirth’s home county had 48,010 Democrats.