Former District 25 legislator Dan Ahlers tells the Federal Election Commission he’s running for U.S. Senate. That’s great—call me when Ahlers announces, and we can talk about Ahlers’s four paths to the ballot:
- Ahlers can choose to run as a Democrat and have to collect 1,615 signatures from registered Democrats by March 31.
- Ahlers can run as an independent and collect 3,393 signatures from registered voters of any party by April 28.
- Ahlers can spend a couple more months past that collecting 3,393 signatures to organize a whole new party by July 1 which could then nominate Ahlers for Senate, his Dell Rapids neighbor Brian Wirth for House, and a whole mess of other surprise down-ticket candidates by convention vote before August 11. (I really like this option! Imagine: a nice, tight three-month election!)
- Ahlers can test the Woster Gambit and run as a Republican. That would require 1,730 signatures by March 31, only 115 more than statewide candidates need to run as Democrats.
That choice is up to Ahlers. What I’m really curious about right now is what apparent candidate Ahlers will do with his initiative petition to replace gerrymandering with an independent redistricting commission.
A rational campaign manager would tell Ahlers to drop his initiative petition immediately. Dethroning Mike Rounds will require singular focus; Ahlers can’t be distracting his donors and voters with long words like gerrymandering and redistricting. Besides, trying to separate finances for a state ballot question committee and a federal election campaign would be a compliance nightmare: If Ahlers were to make a campaign stop in Huron and said, from the same microphone, “Vote to get rid of gerrymandering and Mike Rounds’s pandering!” he’d have to report that his ballot question committee paid for the trip up while his Senate committee paid for the trip back. Add different reporting laws and deadlines, and mingling a ballot question and a U.S. Senate bid becomes all the more of a distraction.
Now I could see a practical path in which a candidate would focus on a statewide ballot initiative petition drive first, then declare for Senate when that job was done. Using that petition activity as an opportunity to get around the state, garner some positive non-partisan media attention, have some educational conversations with voters, and take the temperature of voters and donors at key fall events. Let the voters see you doing some real work for them first, submit the initiative petition this November 4, then say, “You know what, South Dakota? During the petition drive, I’ve heard from tens of thousands of you that you want real change. Thus, you’ve inspired me to take another step to serve you by running for U.S. Senate!”
Maybe Ahlers can still do that, because really, one out of a thousand South Dakotans will notice the lazy flack fired at Ahlers by the SDGOP spin blog; another two out of a thousand will notice this cogitation on Ahlers’s potential candidacy on Dakota Free Press. The vast majority of voters Ahlers meets on the street during the next five weeks will have no idea he’s filed one piece of paper with the FEC.
But if Ahlers is running to beat Mike Rounds, not to mention scare off any potential primary challengers (speculation, anyone?), he’s going to need to focus. He’s going to need to hand over the anti-gerrymandering ballot question campaign entirely to his committee chair, Aaron Matson, and start spending every day raising big Sutton-sized money to challenge Rounds’s even bigger money.
Good guy. Much, much better then Rounds
It doesn’t matter, Owen. Smilin’ Mike is a R. He’s also a potato, but the reflex Rs won’t notice that.
What kind of potato? Kennebec, russet, red, rotten?
Young Mr. Ahlers knows a lot about renting videos to hicks and selling gas station coffee, but he knows little about being in the legislatures. He was one of the biggest jokes in the legislatures for years. About potatoes, he does know. Mr. Ahlers has breakfasted with grudznick before and the young man can put them down with a ferocity nearly unmatched by the rest of his caucus, save Mr. Kloucek, who had a gluttony advantage.
He’s whatever brand of potato you want him to be, Debbo. Once ingested, potatoes emerge pretty much the same.
😁😁😁
“Better than Rounds” is a pretty low bar. Heck, I could say that about the Republican primary challenger, Scyller Borglum, just by dint of her not being part of the good-ol’-boy network.
But then Billie Sutton was far better than Kristi Noem, and that didn’t get him 50%+1. Can Ahlers put together a better campaign than Sutton? Does he have a Dell Rapids brain trust similar to Billie’s Burke Mafia?
https://www.rawstory.com/2020/01/daughter-of-deceased-gop-strategist-posts-files-north-carolina-republicans-tried-to-keep-sealed/
Daughter of deceased wingnut strategist posted secret gerrymandering files and maps and other goodies wingnuts wanted kept secret.
Don’t kid yourself that voter suppression by any and all means is confined in southern states, because it isn’t. Wingnuts are inherently evil swine and we need to root them out where they are found.
Hofeller was a busy little busy body- Lawyers for her father’s company have worked to try and keep the files sealed, saying they were “trade secrets” and proprietary information.
“I originally started sharing them with journalists as a direct response to the assertion by the legislative defendants through counsel that they should be destroyed,” Stephanie told NPR. They along with other news sites were given the original files.
The documents reveal Hofteller worked to change maps in Arizona, Florida, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, Ohio, Tennessee and Virginia, along with specific counties in New York and Texas.
Got me convinced wingnuts are cheaters.
I read about that Mike. She thought her father was an SOB. She was right. She wants to do the right thing even though she’s not a registered Democrat.