Toby Doeden pretends to be a man of the people, but just like the White House billionaire he emulates, the loudmouth car sales man running for Governor thinks money should buy loyalty:
Perhaps Doeden’s most Trump-esque moment of the interview came when he was pressed on his support for the administration’s tariff policy, which was seen as negatively impacting U.S. agriculture.
A poll last month commissioned by News Watch and the Chiesman Center for Democracy found a majority of respondents in South Dakota agreed with the Supreme Court’s ruling to strike down the tariffs.
“I think the people that respond to polls like that, many of them are liberals and they would say ‘Donald Trump is terrible’ even if he handed them a million dollars in cash. There’s nothing to please them,” Doeden said [Alexander Rifaat, “Toby Doeden: The Outsider,” South Dakota News Watch, 2026.05.27].
Actually, lots of people say Trump is terrible precisely because he’s handing out millions of dollars to lots of people—insurrectionists, his kids, handpicked contractors, fellow billionaires.
But Doeden doesn’t get that. Doeden’s dedication to Donnie-dictatorship leads him to essentially say that rich guys like himself ought to be able to bribe their way to popularity, not to mention buy an election. That position turns his campaign slogan “For the People, Not the Powerful” upside down.