Rhoden-Doeden Runoff: Who Gets Johnson’s and Hansen’s Voters?

The top two finishers in Tuesday’s primary, car-and-booze loudmouth Toby Doeden and Governor Larry Rhoden, claimed 56% of the Republican vote. That leaves the 44% of Republicans who preferred Congressman Dusty Johnson or Speaker Jon Hansen to consider to whom they should switch their vote in July 28 runoff.

Rhoden finished 5.4 percentage points behind Doeden in the primary. If everyone who voted in the primary shows up for the runoff, and if none of Tuesday’s Doeden/Rhoden voters change their minds, Rhoden needs to win at least 56.2% of the votes that went for Johnson or Hansen.

That’s not a hard split to achieve, and I think Rhoden can claim that lion’s share of each also-ran’s voters.

First, Dusty Johnson’s voters:

People who back Dusty Johnson are policy pragmatists. They want smart, civil discourse that produces good policy. Their guy’s smart and civil wonkery got beat by attacks from Doeden and Rhoden against Johnson’s failure to show perfect fealty to Donald Trump. Dusty’s voters may rightly be mad at both of their runoff candidates for such unfair and unpragmatic attacks, but their pragamtism won’t let them boycott the runoff. They’ll ask themselves which of the two remaining options will govern more closely along the problem-solving paradigm that Dusty offered. Rhoden waged the attack he had to wage to survive the primary, but he also has demonstrated his distinctly non-Trumpian ability to govern smartly (e.g., picking Tony Venhuizen to be his Lieutenant Governor and provide Johnsonesque brainpower to his administration) and get things done (e.g., building the prison that Kristi Noem couldn’t, compromising to deliver some semblance of property tax relief). Doeden waged the Trumpist attack because he’s an archetypical Trumpist: loud, obnoxious, savoring personal attacks, convinced that his wealth entitles him to be the boss, even though he lacks the knowledge and experience to effectively govern, as demonstrated by his inability to enunciate any coherent, detailed policy.

In short, most Johnson voters who think Rhoden is a jerk will think Doeden is a bigger jerk. Johnson primary voters could easily break 70/30 for Rhoden in the runoff.

Now, Hansen voters:

Hansen’s ability to win more than 20% in the primary stems largely from his long-standing work for the anti-abortion movement. Rhoden can point to the anti-abortion bills he’s signed as Governor as well as all the anti-abortion measures, including the 2005 trigger law now post-Dobbs effectively banning all abortion in South Dakota, that he supported while in the Legislature. Rhoden has been working the anti-abortion beat for 20 years; he can much more credibly rally the SD Right to Life vote than can Doeden, the GOP newbie who can point to little talk and zero action in making abortion illegal.

There might be a faction of Hansen voters leaning toward an outsider who would pick Doeden over Rhoden, but I don’t think they’d make up a majority, since (a) people really craving an outsider would have scratched that itch by voting for Doeden in the first place, and (b) they wouldn’t have found much outsider satisfaction by voting for a lawyer who’s played within the bounds of the Republican establishment machine since his first term in the Legislature in 2011 and who gave Governor Rhoden a big-ol’ establishment bear hug (or at least a friendly handshake) with the property tax/sales tax swap compromise last March.

That trusting collaboration may well have laid the groundwork for Hansen himself to endorse Rhoden in the primary. But Hansen doesn’t have to tell his base how to vote; a majority of them will already recognize that Rhoden is the proven anti-abortion advocate that will carry on the march toward misogynist theocracy that Hansen promised. Hansen’s primary voters could easily break 60/40 in favor of Rhoden.

Give Rhoden 60% of Hansen’s primary voters and 70% of Johnson’s, and Rhoden wins the runoff 54% to 46% over Doeden.

Related Reading: South Dakota Searchlight interviewed a variety of politicos on where Johnson/Hansen voters might go in the runoff. Searchlight also notes that lower turnout for the runoff could favor radical rabble-rouser Doeden.