Noem Approval, Election Denial Top 40% in South Dakota; Voters Reject Noem VP Bid

Underscoring South Dakotans’ proclivity for myth-making, Emerson College Polling dispatched a robot to poll 432 South Dakotans and found roughly the same percentage of voters thinking  Joe Biden stole the 2020 election as thinking Kristi Noem is doing a good job as Governor:

A new Emerson College Polling survey in South Dakota finds Governor Kristi Noem with a 43% job approval among residents, while 37% disapprove of the job she is doing in office. President Biden holds a 22% approval rating in South Dakota, and 62% disapproval rating.

“Within Noem’s party, she holds a 73% approval rating; however, among independent voters, a 48% plurality disapprove of the job Noem is doing,” Spencer Kimball, Executive Director of Emerson College Polling said. “Noem’s approval is lowest among voters under 30, at 30%, and highest among those between 50-69, at 53%.”

…Thinking of the 2020 election, residents were asked which comes closest to their view of the way Joe Biden won the election, if he won fair and square or if he stole the election. Respondents are split: 42% think he stole the election while 40% think he won fair and square. When asked the same question about Donald Trump’s win in 2016, 61% think Trump won fair and square, while 18% think he stole the election [Emerson College Polling, “South Dakota: Quarter of Residents Think Gov. Noem Should Be Trump’s Running Mate,” press release, 2023.10.15].

Noem approval and 2020 election mythmaking overlap significantly: 66% of the Nome approvers believe Biden stole the 2020 election, while 73% of those who recognize Noem governs poorly also recognize that the 2020 election was fair and honest.

Sadly, only 91 of the 432 respondents—a mere 20%—acknowledge that both the 2016 and 2020 elections were conducted fairly and squarely. If I make excuses for my fellow believers in fact, perhaps I can speculate that a significant number of those who say Trump stole the 2016 election are saying not that there was widespread election fraud but that losing the popular vote but ascending to the Presidency by the vote of the obsolete and inherently racist Electoral College is not a fair and square way to win…but tht leads us into a debate about the rules of the game ought to be and not whether a win was fair and square under the rules as written, and by that latter standard, both he 2016 and 2020 elections were conducted and the winners chosen entirely according to Hoyle (and Washington, Franklin, Hamilton, et al.).

While cultish self-delusion may suffuse far too great a portion of te South Dakota electorate, their embrace of Noem’s image-making has its limits. Even among her home folks, Noem has only convinced a quarter of voters that she’s cut out to be Vice-President:

Residents were asked if Donald Trump is the nominee, if he should choose Kristi Noem as his running mate, or if he should choose someone else. A quarter of residents (25%) think he should choose Noem, while 38% think he should choose someone else and 20% say it depends on who is considered. Among just Republican voters, 34% think Noem should be the 2024 running mate of a hypothetical Trump nomination, while 32% think it should be someone else, and 18% say it depends on who is considered [Emerson College Polling, 2023.10.15].

Now some small fraction of that not-Kristi 2024 cadre may be folks who approve of her work as Governor so much that they don’t want to lose her and see South Dakota run by big bully Larry Rhoden (though if you approve of Kristi’s bullying, you ought to approve of  Larry’s). But there could also be a significant percentage of her approvers who think she’s fine running South Dakota but we don’t dare put her one step or one bad bout of covid away from the nuclear button.

Whatever those hypothetical breakdowns, the fact is that, despite all of Corey Lewandowski’s coaching (or maybe because of it), three quarters of South Dakota voters (or at least those who take online polls or have landlines to pick up and a few spare minutes to talk to the Emerson College robot*) are unconvinced that “America’s Governor” that Kristi Noem could handle even the #2 job in the White House, never mind #1.

*Our interested polling friends from Boston provide this explanation of their methodology:

The Emerson College Polling South Dakota poll was conducted October 1-4, 2023. The sample consisted of n=432 South Dakota voters with a credibility interval, similar to a poll’s margin of error of +/- 4.7 percentage points; the sample of South Dakota residents is n=477 with a credibility interval of 4.4 percentage points. The data sets were weighted by gender, age, race, party, and educationbased on the general population using a sample of n=477 participants and allowing the natural fallout to create the sample of n=432 voters. Turnout modeling is based on US Census parameters, and South Dakota voter turnout data by regions (SD SOS). Data was collected by contacting a list of landlines via Interactive Voice Response (IVR) and emails provided by Aristotle, along with an online panel of voters provided by Alchemer [ECP, 2023.10.15].