John Fitzgerald still wants to be Attorney General. He wants the job so badly, he’s giving up the good job he has right now as Fourth Circuit Court judge:
A state circuit court judge is stepping down to pursue the Republican nomination for South Dakota attorney general.
John Fitzgerald announced his candidacy Tuesday. Current Attorney General Marty Jackley is running for the U.S. House of Representatives, which is an open seat because South Dakota’s current U.S. representative, Dusty Johnson, is running for governor.
Fitzgerald lives in St. Onge and previously served 42 years as a state’s attorney in Butte and Lawrence counties. In November 2022, Fitzgerald was elected as a Fourth Circuit Court judge, serving eight northwestern South Dakota counties.
…Other Republicans vying for the nomination include McPherson County State’s Attorney Austin Hoffman, and Lance Russell, the state’s attorney for Fall River and Oglala counties and a former legislator [Joshua Haiar, “South Dakota Judge Stepping Down to Pursue State Attorney General Nomination,” South Dakota Searchlight, 2026.05.13].
Fitzgerald’s entry into the race recreates the three-way battle from 2018 in which he and fellow Black Hills barrister Lance Russell managed to split the Republican convention vote and lose the nomination to a younger East River candidate, the disastrously incompetent and ultimately impeached killer and liar Jason Ravnsborg. Fortunately, this time around, if Fitzgerald and Russell split the old-timers’ vote and lose to #3 in the race, that #3, Austin Hoffman, is no idiot, because Charlie and Holly Hoffman don’t raise idiots.
Fitzgerald, Russell, Hoffman, and any other GOP jurists who’d like to be South Dakota’s top cop will face the vote of their Republican peers at the SDGOP convention in Rapid City on June 27.
Earth hater Lee Schoenbeck doesn’t like him but if the delegates are mostly in the far white wing of that party Russell is the nominee, right?