There she is, Ms. South Dakota….
Which candidate for Governor has the highest percentage of support from South Dakota donors?
Why, it’s Tracey Quint, Libertarian!
Quint’s gubernatorial campaign reported $150 in contributions on its pre-primary report, which counts all contributions from January 1 through May 18. Quint was just nominated by the LPSD on April 23, so she’s only had four weeks to raise money. But every dollar she’s raised so far comes from South Dakota (from one South Dakotan, actually, Sioux Falls marketer Timothy Godinez).
100% South Dakota-funded! Way to go, Tracey Quint!
Democrat Jamie Smith is the next most South Dakota-fueled candidate for Governor. His primary report shows that since launching his campaign in February, Smith has collected $137,424.97. $1,840 of that money came from out of state ($460 of that came from folks with the last name Smith). Thus, 98.66% of Smith’s political cash is good clean South Dakota money.
Republican Steven Haugaard also makes the 90s with his South Dakota cash percentage. Haugaard reports $4,700 from two guys in Colorado, a gal in Oklahoma, and a Jesus-y lender in Georgia. That’s 4.45% of Haugaard’s reported $105,693.25 pre-primary income. Haugaard thus can say with pride that he is 95.55% South Dakota funded.
The woman Haugaard, Smith, and Quint all want to beat, Governor Kristi Noem, remains hugely dependent on out-of-state donors. In every category, a majority of Noem’s pre-primary campaign contributions appear to have come from out-of-state sources. 55.6% of Noem’s contributions from candidates, 58.7% of her contributions from political action committees, 67.6% of contributions from private companies (“entities”, in South Dakota campaign finance parlance), and 100% of contributions from political parties came from outside South Dakota.
Noem itemizes over 8,100 individual contributions. Her PDF filing doesn’t paste neatly into a spreadsheet for complete analysis, but I randomly sample three pages from this list—pages 36, 45, and 126—and find that $14,149.51 of the $24,156.98 listed on those three pages came from out-of-state donors. That’s 58.57% from outside South Dakota. If we extrapolate that percentage to all of Noem’s individual contributions—$1.22 million from itemized individuals, $805K from unitemized donors for whom we have no information and can only guess at locations—and add the more easily countable amounts from out-of-state entities, candidates, parties, and PACs, we may estimate that $1.81 million of her $3.04 million take from January 1 through May 18 came from outside South Dakota. Noem’s campaign income this year so far is only 40.5% South Dakotan. As I calculated in January from Noem’s 2021 report, the majority stakeholders in Kristi Noem’s gubernatorial campaign are from outside South Dakota.
Of course, 40.5% of $3.04 million is still five times the amount all three of Noem’s opponents raised together since January 1, enough to cream all three and have cash to spare to purge the Legislature of insufficiently servile Republicans.
But buyers beware: three of your four choices for Governor are almost entirely funded by South Dakotans. Your sitting (on a jet) Governor is mostly funded by people who do not have to live with the consequences of her governance.
Living the dream. She is a millionaire. in fact, a multi-millionaire.
Mrs. Noem will say anything, do anything and promise anything but will continue to do nothing but raise money for herself.
I sent Jamie $100 a coupla months ago. I also commented in the box along with the donation, “There will be more if you put some content on your campaign website.”
I did not receive an acknowledgment of my contribution. I wrote a subsequent email to his email address as a SoDak legislator. Still no response. His campaign website is still just about how proud he is that he is a dog owner.
I am going to send the $250 I offered to Jamie to just talk about something other than his dog to Tracey, who I helped get nominated a month ago. She, at least, acknowledged me.
Kristi, our current and next governor, is a despicable human being. Jamie could at least try to be a human being. Tracey has proven to me that she is a nice human being, and she deserves the paltry amount I shall send her.
Mr. Newland’s observation seems clear: Senator Smith’s campaign is horrible at acknowledging campaign donors and oblivious to those of us who have moved his message forward.
Senator Smith’s insistence on using the “m” word is a refutation of the right of all adults to enjoy cannabis. His drug of choice is clearly overeating.
My home state of South Dakota is screwed—as long as there is a Republican secretary of state no god will stop Republican rule over the people.
Bob, your $250 will keep Quint’s SD cash ratio at 100%, and it will make her campaign coffer 167% fuller. I’m sticking with Smith, but I welcome a well-funded Libertarian candidate who can wage a vocal campaign.
Curious: would a well-funded and visible Libertarian do more damage to Noem by pulling away conservative voters or to Smith by pulling away marijuana voters?
Moving Smith’s message forward by insulting him personally? Really, Larry?
Well, if the shrew spits. Yeah, Senator Smith is probably as good as any Democrat to take on a candidate who looks like a rag doll on meth.
Cannabis users don’t give a hoot about Smith. Smith and Quint combined will pull maybe 101 voters from Noem’s Republican potatoes.
Libertarians are wrong on GUNS, as are the Republicans. Under them, more Uvalde, Texases, more massacres,
Vote Jamie Smith so he can lose weight as Governor.
We’ve never had a VEGAN Governor?
Let’s start a PROGRESSIVE Party that will get good things DONE!!!
If Noem gets millions of dollars from outside South Dakota she doesn’t have to ask any of her constituents for money. We can spend our money on things we need like gasoline and eggs. If she spends millions of dollars of out-of-state money on oversized shiny postcards suitable for use as dustpans, fans, flyswatters or temporary shingles, that’s okay.
I think the postcards can also be used to make pinwheels but I haven’t got that figured out yet. I think crafting with campaign postcards would be a good 4-H project. Maybe some kid will make a prom dress out of them.
Jesus, Mary and Joseph, give me strength—oh, slip Mrs. Noem a few bucks….