South Dakota Democrats suffered another devastating election, as Republicans dominated every called or callable race on the 2020 general election ballot.
Note: our morning-after reporting on election results as a Sioux Falls-sized hole in it. Even though Minnehaha County is handling its absentee ballots much more efficiently than the primary crush in June, county auditor Bob Litz appears to have stuck with his plan to send election workers home to rest up and finish the job with fresh eyes today. Minnehaha County, with 22% of South Dakota’s registered voters, thus remains the only county not reporting complete results as of 7 a.m. today. Minnehaha County has counted and reported approximately 51,000 ballots so far, but with turnout in other big towns averaging 75% and 125,534 registered voters in Minnehaha County, we can expect the county to report another 43,000 votes.
But no Democrat on the statewide ballot is close enough to the Republican incumbents to have a chance of being saved by those outstanding Minnehaha County ballots, even if every one of those ballots came from a loyal Democrat. Donald Trump leads Joe Biden by 118,000 votes. Senator Mike Rounds leads Dan Ahlers by 136,000 votes. Public Utilities Commissioner Gary Hanson leads Remi W. B. Bald Eagle by 160,000 votes.
Congressman Dusty Johnson faced no Democratic challenger, but he leads Libertarian Randy “Uriah” Luallin by 231,000 votes. (But on the good side for Libertarians, Luallin’s percentage of the vote, currently 18%, is well above the 2.5% required of a statewide candidate to allow the Libertarians to retain their official political party status.
In Legislative races, only two Democrats, incumbent Senators Troy Heinert and Red Dawn Foster, have beaten Republicans for seats in Pierre. The Minnehaha slow count leaves eight of our 35 Legislative districts (25, 15, 14, 13, 12, 11, 10, 9) uncallable, but the 27 done districts are sending only six Democrats to Pierre, Heinert and Foster to the Senate and the following five to the House… and all five of these Democrats were either unopposed or faced only one Republican opponent, meaning a Democrat was guaranteed one seat in that district:
- Rep. Oren Lesmeister, District 28A (unopposed)
- Rep. Peri Pourier, District 27 (second to Liz May, the only Republican candidate)
- Rep. Shawn Bordeaux, District 26A (unopposed)
- Rep. Ryan Cwach, District 18 (second to Stevens, but no challengers)
- Rep.-Elect Jennifer Healy Keintz, District 1 (second to Rep. Tamara St. John, the only Republican candidate, and beat incumbent Democratic Rep. Steven McCleerey)
District 1 ousted Democratic Senator Susan Wismer in favor of Republican Michael Rohl, and Democratic challenger Jordan Foos lost Democrats’ District 18 Senate seat to chamber-switching Republican Rep. Jean Hunhoff. Thus, at best, if Senator Reynold Nesiba can hold onto his Sioux Falls District 15 seat, Democrats will have three members out of 35 in the Senate.
Democrats lost Ray Ring’s House seat to the Republicans in District 17, Clay and Turner counties. Democrats hold the five seats listed above; their five other seats are in the still uncalled Minnehaha districts of 9, 13, 14, and 15. But even if the remaining Minnehaha votes break all sunshine and roses for Democrats, the voice of reason, decency, and opposition to Kristi Noem’s reckless vanity show in Pierre will be fewer during the 2021 Session.
A Solid rejection of the Democrat party in SD, Districts 26 and 27 went solid Republican barring 3 counties out of 12. Time to redistrict and make this state solid Red
Thanks for the update and summary, I depend on you to keep me in the loop, Cory. I can’t imagine how insufferable these people will be a opposition of something like three senators and seven House members.
James: Four brutal redistrictings (1990,2000,2010) in I can’t imagine how you could make it worse. I live in Rapid City, the Native and blue vote here has been surgically split between 32, 33, 34, and 35. Even great candidates are defeated by the likes of Tina Mulally, Lynn DiSanto, and worse: Philemon Jensen, homophobic ignoramus, got to run unopposed because there is no point.
So many good leaders I believe in across the State and across the Nation were defeated last night, and the nasty, disgusting, ugly tweets from the other side remind me why I’m a Democrat. So did a statewide SDDP zoom call last night – people of good heart trying to bring us together. On the plus side, the SDDP participated in a project that registered 2500 Native voters this cycle. If there is a future it’s linking up organizing and understanding with the Native vote, but with Noem fans moving here to participate in the ignorance is there a future?
This is a very hard state to live in around election time, and since I came here (1995) it has just gotten worse. I have recently had hopes for Sioux Falls but it seems that the ugly is still pretty strong there.
The morality play of contrast between the R and D candidates in District 35 led me to post this on South Dakota Kos a couple weeks ago: South Dakota slipping into darkness
I will have to post an update for my Daily Kos comrades, maybe in a week, when I have the heart.
A very demoralizing drubbing indeed. Most of my Libbie friends are very upset this morning but are planning on taking up the demon weed so they’ll mellow out about it soon.
The Democratic Party is struggling even in the counties that were gerrymandered to concentrate the Democratic vote. James, what sort of redistricting do you think that result warrants?
Well my former South Dakotans, Biden beat your boy and he was a good man too.
He nearly always paid off his girlfriend’s to keep them quiet. At least now when you get very sick, and the bake sale doesn’t quite cover your treatment costs, you can smoke Marijuana.
Don’t be so quick to call it for Biden yet. I agree that he has a clearer path to victory, but Arizona has largely GOP absentee ballots to be counted, despite the AP and Fox’s calls, and Nevada is not clear yet. If Biden maintains his lead in Arizona, I think this election becomes a lot more clear.
Dicta, I’m making no such quick call. We have ballots to count and recount.
I am glad for no Trump but sad Jo and Spike did not do better.
Not concerned about a recount in Wisconsin. 20k is a massive, massive swing and Scott Walker got nowhere near that. Arizona is more worrisome. Nevada is also quite close, although I expect that to break towards Biden.
I’m trying to restrict my commentary today to actual votes counted.
Yes, but we have clear indications of outstanding votes. This is why Michigan was projected by ABC a fair while ago.
UPDATE: Auditor Litz tells reporter Shelly Conlon that he has about 41,500 absentee ballots to count. That’s about 3.5% lower than the 43,000 I estimated above from an average of turnout in other big towns.
drumpf’s crew has already stated they will ask for Wisconsin recount,n which they would not get if drumpf hasd shut down counting already.
The irony of this all is that SD Republicans evidently love their pot also.
I’ve been saying this for awhile now. Young Democrats leave SD once they graduate college for better paying jobs and for their disillusionment in living in a deeply Red State. I felt that way when living in SD – who wants to live in a state where the pay is painfully low?
The Democrat voters who do stay are too quiet and meek to shake up the state. They don’t want to anger their neighbors and have accepted their fate of living in a deep red state. SD Democrats are of the most conservative kind, many of them are pro-life and are not progressive at all. It’s actually rather embarassing that Sioux Falls can’t get any progressive stars to run, but maybee there just isn’t any and all of them have left. Also running for the State Legislature is expensive and the pay is painfully low. It’s just not worth it in a state where the wages rank the worst in the nation already. The system was set up this way on purpose and I don’t expect it to change for a long long time. Trump Republicans are vicious and will stifle any small progressive step. The Nation is More divided than ever.
In Spite of it all, Thanks Minnesota for rejecting Trumpism! I knew you would vote blue yet once again! Voting Blue since ’76.
My wife’s theory is that everyone is tired of driving to Colorado for their weed.
Enormous disconnect, Jenny: the same voters who checking yea on IM 26 and Amendment A also overwhelmingly elected Republicans who, for the most part, have stood in the way of enacting those policies and who could look for ways to snarl those policies in Pierre this winter without any meaningful opposition. The continued failure to recognize the importance of electing an effective opposition, or just wholesale replacing unresponsive, clubby Republicans with Democrats more in tune with the people’s wishes, imperils any ballot measure victory.
At some later date, Mr. H, when all the smoke and whining settles a bit, and assuming the Trumpists don’t assault everybody with rotten eggs and start soaping windows and letting air out of automobile tires, it would be interesting for you to do a study on how many of the Republicans elected are in which factions of “Republican.” This would not be the typical “Gordon Howie RINO” screaming by the likes of Mr. Nelson and his ilk. This would be you putting your brain to analyzing which of the “Republicans” are really Democrats, which are Conservatives with Common Sense, which are RINOs, and which are just plain Insaner than Most.
grudznick predicts the caucuses splitting into sub-groups to pacify those who are insaner than most. They won’t cotton to the RINOs and Democrats who just put an (R) by their name being in the same room, and they hate the Conservatives with Common Sense so much because those fellows are effective.
It is not lost on Messrs. Jensen and Randolph that they are less effective even than your blog’s favorite whipping boy, Mr. Nesiba. Mr. Goodwin, from the District Numbered 30 and with half the brain of Mr. Haugaard even realized he should toe the line and pretend to be less a follower of those insaner than most.
Well to be fair the make-up of the R dominated State Senate does appear more moderate compared to years past. We can only hope they will reject some of the real crazy stuff that shows up every legislative session.
Ditca: notice how many purple items of apparel appeared on moderators and election workers on screen?
UPDATE: Minnehaha’s results are in. Democratic Rep. Michael Saba lost his House seat in District 9 to Republican Bethany Soye. Democratic Rep. Kelly Sullivan lost her House seat to Republican Richard Thomason. Dems held Rep. Erin Healy’s seat in District 14 and all three seats in District 15, although not by the kinds of swamping margins that Republicans posted in other districts. District 15 is supposed to be a safely gerrymandered district, but even there, it appears the Democrats had to work.
Net result: Democrats sink from 5 to 3 Senators and from 11 to 8 House members.