I’m reporting the latest results from the November 2022 election, and with zero precincts counted, I can report that Republicans have won 22 out of 35 South Dakota Senate seats and 31 out of 70 House seats. That’s because, as the candidate count stands right now, Democrats have fielded candidates in only 13 Senate districts and 25 House Districts.
In the Senate, Democrats are running for five of the ten districts that include Sioux Falls (10, 11, 12, 14, and 15), one of the six touching Rapid City (32), four southeast districts (16, 18, 19, and 21), and three Indian Country districts (1, 26, and 27). Outside of Sioux Falls and Rapid City, the only town over 10,000 where Democrats are running for Senate is Yankton. There is no Democratic Senate challenger in our biggest university towns, Brookings and Vermillion.
In the House, Democrats are running candidates in eight of the ten Sioux Falls districts (2, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15, and 25) and five of the six Rapid City Districts (30, 32, 33, 34, and 35). Democrats have only one candidate in nine of the 25 two-seat districts they are challenging (2, 3, 4, 5, 9, 16, 22, 30, and 33). Democrats do have two House candidates in Brookings, Vermillion, and Yankton, and they managed one in Aberdeen, Watertown, Huron, but they have no House candidates in Mitchell, Pierre, or Spearfish.
Democrats have managed to trigger two primary contests, both in Sioux Falls. Three Democrats are running for District 11 House (Kimberly A. Parke, Margaret Kuipers, and Stephanie Lynn Marty), and three Democrats are running for District 15 House (incumbent Linda Duba and newcomers Kadyn Wittman and Patrick [Pat] Olson). They’d have had a third primary on the Rosebud Reservation, between Eric Emery and Alexandra Frederick for the single-seat House District 26A, But Frederick’s nominating petition lacked sufficient Democratic signatures.
With all these gaps left by Democrats, Libertarians should sense an opportunity. South Dakota’s only other recognized party holds its convention April 23 at Chamberlain. The party may nominate candidates for any of those Legislative openings. Those candidates may then take advantage of the absence of a Democratic candidate to build their party’s brand and maybe place the first registered Libertarians in the Legislature to shake up the regular order in Pierre.
But as it stands, Republicans are only two seats away from a two-thirds supermajority in the Senate and five seats away from simple majority in the House.
This is just shameful.
As I tweeted yesterday after a Democratic candidate East River was told by a deputy sheriff that her campaign signs were found in a ditch the SDGOP and its Puritanical Pug have so bullied and intimidated women and Democrats in my home state of South Dakota candidates have just said eff it.
Well, at least the Vice Chair of the state Democratic Party got a plum federal patronage job. That was last month, 14 months into the Biden administration. Before that, the key federal positions were still held by Trump’s appointees. Way to go, Randy Seiler!
Now, let’s talk about leaving 26 of the 35 Senate seats open for Republican victories without even trying. Twenty-six! Just let that settle in. How far back do you need to research to find a worse effort by a state Democrat chair?
If he remains as chairman of the state party, I guarantee Seiler won’t fill the constitutional offices and the PUC position either at the state convention. He’s the best lucky rabbit’s foot the Republican Party has ever had in South Dakota. Whether he stays on the nest or quits as chair, it no longer makes any difference as to the outcome of the 2022 elections. Right now, it’s up to what’s left of the S.D. Democratic Party to either rebuild into a modern state party or just go and sign up as a Republican or an independent.
Are the Democrat names listed actual candidates or fillers to be replaced? Is that still a common practice?
Somewhat off Tangent, but a warning to Dems of political office…. Miss Lindsey Graham, likely blood relative of one Grudzilla, declared if magats controlled the senate, KBJ would not have been given a hearing in front of magATS. This is what is at stake. KBJ is infinitely more qualified than the majority of ideologues magats gave lifetime judgeships to and racist magats would have given her the same despicable treatment they gave Merrick Garland. This has got to stop and it stops with Dems screwing up their pluck and voting in every election.
o – I shudder to think if there are any Dem fillers on the 2022 ballot.
O, 96, there have been several placeholders in the past couple go-rounds; given the difficulties in recruiting this year, it seems logical to conclude there are comparable numbers of placeholders on the current roster.
Maybe people with good sense just refuse to be offered up as political sacrificial lambs in a state that they have no chance in. Even after Noem’s scandals, she still has a ridiculous approval rating. After Ravnsborg killed a guy, he still has a significant grassroots effort attempting to put him back in again. The hiding of DUIs, the dispensation of COVID relief money to the family of state legislators, family that doesn’t even reside in the state. None of it mattered. Not one bit. Given this, can you blame them? I also have to ask: is there any evidence that running placeholder candidates has a positive impact on the lessening of political polarization/party politics? If not, why are we bothered that someone didn’t write their name down to be crushed in a state the clearly doesn’t care what Pierre does as long as it is filled with republicans? I am definitely open to evidence that it matters, but this feels like a form over function debate.
Dicta, I understand your question about if placeholders have an impact on partisanship. My question was more aimed at asking if even the number of registered candidates will be the number of candidates come election time. Place holders seem to often drop out and not be replaced. That would mean that even Cory’s meager numbers here are optimistic.
Yeah, it’s an unfortunate commentary on the state of affairs.
Dicta has a point. No one wants to be a sacrificial lamb. When people but their heart and soul into a campaign, they want to win. If there is no chance for that, many people can’t see the usefulness of the time and expense.
I spent some time lobbying on environmental issues in the SD Legislature, as have a number of people since the 1970s. Most people thought making that effort was a waste of time and money. From the standpoint of turning the state into an environmental paradise, yeah, it was a failure. But, things could have been much worse without a counterbalance to oppose nuclear waste, large-scale waste dumping, improve mining laws and regulations, put state water policy on a better footing, etc. The state has a pretty good groundwater program because people became engaged on that issue. All of these were thought “hopeless causes,” yet we won some, and made progress on others.
I understand that candidates are different from issues. Candidates come usually as a binary choice—this guy or the other gal. Issues come with a nearly infinite number of policy choices. Still, candidates can make their campaigns more about policy. I would guess no one is thrilled with the corruption and sleazy behavior in Pierre. Run with positive programs to fix that.
All of you who live in South Dakota should run. Why not, your going to lose but wouldn’t a debate be fun?
Unless you get Wismered before the debates.
Well..We can hope that the Republicans will stew in their electoral prosperity and fall into an angry schism brought on by ego, a lust for ideological purity, and their nutty loyalty to Donald Trump. Lots of sharp elbows in that bunch…we can hope they tire of each others company.
Make that 23 seats in the Senate uncontested: Susan WIsmer’s District 1 Senate petition was challenged and decertified. There is still time for an independent petition drive.
54 seats uncontested? What. Joke.
Has Loser written all over it.
It is a Party that’s says, Hey One Party oligarchy, you can have those 54 seats, Free, no charge. We’re giving them to you! We make no effort at running people against you.
Look at the body language of the SD Democratic website. They want your email address to send you their Loser PR! Instead of encouraging dialogue on how center Left people can win, all it will take from you is your email address!
Somehow the Democratic Party believes they should be in Sioux Falls? Why? Parties? If the Party wins, hey, the power is in Pierre if you win, that’s where you make your policy law.
Since the Democrats don’t want to win, there are 3 answers—
1. Run as an Independent. Call yourself Independent or Progressive or People’s Party (which actually had Andrew Lee as their Governor in the late 1890’s!) or anything showing you are in to win !
2. Run as a Center Left Libertarian.
3. Either start the laborious process of getting 7,000 signatures to start a Political Party and hope that one of your statewide candidates gets 2.50 percent OR just say, Screw it, we’re doing it Now, we re not waiting for November’s in even numbered years, and have your own elections every week! (yeah, computers and human hands and minds are capable of that, it’s not shattering the sound barrier).
Why? It shows that we have the power to elect ourselves every Monday to do the job the Republican Legislature refuses to do! It would be probably a nonprofit Assembly, no laws would be passed, no taxes would be levied, and we can take action and DO things every week of the year as elected Governors, Senators and Managers of our nonprofit group. Want high paying jobs, we can create them! Want libraries, want anything good, we can create it, as a nonprofit doing projects and getting them done! Not waiting every 2 years for a Democratic Party let down.
There’s 3 options, they all work.
Getting 7000 or so signatures to create a Progressive Party is a lot of work but it can be done.
Creating say a Progressive Assembly as a nonprofit group is as easy as drafting a Nonprofit Assocation articles and Constitution or creating a Nonprofit Corporation.
We can get elected in November.
And we can get elected every week, if we focus our minds on WINNING and creating things that the legislature would never Dare in 10, 000 years! Can you be audacious, and say, we win every week (in an actual election) and create products and services for all South Dakotans that would make Elon Musk pause and say, Wow, they did it!
I was once told by a high ranking Democrat that the problem with getting Democrats to run for elected office is that so many who are truly interested in public service have careers in public service – social workers, teachers . . . Whereas Republicans see elected office as public service. That difference in perspective will always account for difficulty getting many good Democrat candidates to run for office — they have already dedicated themselves to public service.
I would say since then the GOP also profits from attracting candidates with an ax to grind or with a need to ensure everyone is living the moral code they believe everyone (else) should be living — the evangelicals.
I would also bet that some of our Republican friends would lament the difficulty finding serious candidates looking to the work of governance — even though names will appear on ballots with “R” in front of them.