Republican gubernatorial candidate Toby Doeden proves his shallow understanding of democracy and ignorance of state and local history by attacking the runoff law requiring nominees for Governor, U.S. House, and U.S. Senate to win at least 35% of the vote in the primary or face a top-two runoff:
“We should just cancel the 35% rule and just award me the winner, like that’s it,” Doeden said while laughing in a video published Monday on YouTube. He added, without a laugh, “such a silly rule anyway. They put this in back in the ’80s. I don’t know who did it, but whoever did it should be discredited. Like, it’s ridiculous. You ask the people to vote. Whoever gets the most votes wins” [Joshua Haiar, “Candidate Condemns ‘Whoever’ Approved a Runoff Law, and It Turns Out to Be a Legend from His City,” South Dakota Searchlight, 2026.06.09].
Naturally, the loudmouth whose millions could only buy him 30.6% of the vote in a four-way primary rejects majority rule and wants to claim the nomination on the basis of minority support. Dodo Doeden also shows his ignorance of the history of the runoff rule, which arose to prevent a situation in which a primary vote could have been rendered meaningless and the nomination for the top three statewide offices would have been decided by a handful of power brokers at convention:
Prior to 1985, candidates for Governor, U.S. Senate, and U.S. House were required to win 35 percent to secure the nomination – but if no candidate met this threshold, the delegates to the party’s state convention chose a nominee from among the primary candidates [Tony Venhuizen, “Joe Barnett Passed SD’s Runoff Law in 1985,” SoDak Governors, 2026.04.30].
Venhuizen documents that conventioneers got to pick their statewide nominee six times before 1985 and nominated the primary winner only twice. So the runoff rule was actually a healthy move to ensure that each party’s nominees, at least for Governor, House, and Senate, were indeed the winners of the most votes in a statewide election and not the best backslappers and backroom maneuverers at convention. The runoff rule Doeden disses actually supports the “whoever gets the most votes wins” principle that Doeden expresses.
I would argue that the runoff law doesn’t go far enough in protecting majority rule: 35% is too low a threshold for winning public office. We should amend the runoff rule to end plurality victories and require a runoff in any election, primary or general, in which the top vote-getter falls short of 50% + 1.
But such finer points of putting democracy in action matter less in the runoff that the fact that in running his mouth off, Dodo Doeden also manages to insult a historic hero of his own community, the author of the runoff rule, Joe Barnett:
Legislation to switch from the convention to a state runoff was proposed in 1985 by House Majority Leader Joe Barnett. Barnett, an Aberdeen attorney and former house speaker, remains a legend of the South Dakota State Legislature even today. He proposed this change with a wide-open 1986 primary season looming.
…News coverage from the 1985 session indicates that Mickelson and Kundert were in favor of the change to a runoff, while Roberts was opposed. Barnett was accused of proposing the change to aid the Mickelson campaign, but he denied that his proposal was in support of any particular candidate. Rather, Barnett argued that the voters, rather than “brokered conventions,” should select party nominees.
Barnett’s legislation passed, but he sadly did not live to see it take effect. Barnett died of a heart attack on May 1, 1985, aged only 53 [Venhuizen, 2026.04.30].
Note the date on Venhuizen’s article: April 30, 2026. I can understand that a newcomer to South Dakota politics might not have encyclopedic knowledge of election laws and other aspects of legislative history of our great state. But maybe a guy running for Governor ought to have an encyclopedia handy. The man Doeden faces in the runoff, incumbent Governor Larry Rhoden, certainly has such an encyclopedia handy: that encyclopedia is Tony Venhuizen, Rhoden’s Lieutenant Governor. And maybe a guy running for Governor in a four-way primary and facing the possibility of a runoff would have been paying attention to that runoff law and where it came from, would have had staffers pulling articles on the subject, would have read or at least been briefed on Venhuizen’s explanation of the majority-rule motivation behind the law, would have noticed that the runoff law originated with a recent local historical figure whose name is stamped on Aberdeen’s university sports arena, and would have concluded, “Gee, it wouldn’t make much sense to get into a tussle about wonky election details and insult the blessed Barnett name to boot.”
But Doeden throws that insult and proves his ignorance:
Democratic former state lawmaker Lars Herseth represented Brown County alongside Barnett.
“I don’t know of anyone, in my time, who did more to serve Brown County than Joe Barnett,” Herseth said.
Don Frankenfeld, of Rapid City, served as a Republican in the state Senate while Barnett was in the House. He said Barnett “was a genius, both intellectually and politically.”
“He had tremendous weight in determining legislative decisions,” Frankenfeld said. “He was also a very thoughtful person.”
Kent Frerichs is a Democratic former lawmaker from Wilmot who served with Barnett.
“He went out of his way to try to make sure that everybody would have equal opportunity to be heard,” Frerichs said.
…Frankenfeld said Mickelson was concerned that if no candidate reached 35%, the decision would move to a convention that was “unpredictable, not representative of the party as a whole” and more likely to be driven by “activists.”
“There is a pretty easy chance of it being manipulated,” Frankenfeld said [Haiar, 2026.06.09].
Doeden backpedals, claiming he was just joking and already knew the history, but he put rank ignorance and disrespect on the record: he said the runoff law and the local hero who crafted it are dumb. Doeden can try to dodge accountability for his own words, but Rhoden can run those words and that video clip in attack ads and knock a few more points off Doeden’s already not-overwhelming vote total in Brown County. Rhoden is already capitalizing on Doeden’s whining about the runoff:
Rhoden campaign spokesman Ian Fury said in a written statement to Searchlight, “Winners win, and losers complain about the rules” [Haiar, 2026.06.09].
That may be the first thing I’ve heard Ian Fury say that makes me say, Right on, brother.
Maybe Rhoden won’t have to campaign hard to win the runoff; he can just let Doeden keep talking, and in the narrowed two-man field, the sound of ignorant, insulting Doeden sticking his foot in his mouth will be all Republicans in Aberdeen and across the state need to hear to give the majority vote to Rhoden.