In the July 1 debate between Democratic candidate Julian Beaudion and independent challenger Brian Bengs, Turn South Dakota Purple moderator Ngoc Thach asked Beaudion, “In the next FEC filing, when voters look at the reports, do you think that it will give them more or less confidence in your campaign if they feel that fundraising is important as an indicator?” Beaudion deflected:
You know what, here’s what we’ve seen across the state is that, again, I have not been asked questions about money Yeah, whatsoever. However, I understand the importance of raising money in a campaign. Again, since day one, we have said that we are a grassroots organization. And so whether or not I raised $2, $3 million or whether or not I just raised $750,000, my dedication is to the people of the state. It’s not to making sure that I have the most money in the race. It’s making sure that I share the values of the people in South Dakota [Julian Beaudion, debate, Turn South Dakota Purple, 2026.07.01, timestamp 47:48].
Beaudion regularly dismisses the importance of campaign fundraising because Bengs has outraised him in every quarter of this election cycle, including the quarter that had just finished when he made this statement in the July 1 debate. (Hmm… maybe the causality goes the other way: Bengs has outraised Beaudion every quarter because Beaudion dismisses the importance of campaign fundraising.) And talking six or seven figures is pretty pie-in-the-sky for Beaudion, who has yet to achieve a six-figure quarter.
Yet Beaudion acknowledged the importance of fundraising in earlier remarks and dug for one metric by which he could spin the fundraising figures in his favor:
…first off, congratulations on raising a tremendous amount of money. It’s an incredible feat, that’s for sure. This campaign started off in April of last year. We were committed to running a grassroots campaign. We knew that fundraising in this economy with affordability issues would be difficult for people. I will say, and I’ll point to this, is that 85— excuse me, 85% of all of the campaign finances that have come through Mr. Banks’s account are from out of state. And then over 90% of our donors are from in-state. That shows credibility and viability right here in South Dakota. Our donors are folks who care about the issues, as I mentioned earlier, that we’ve traveled the state and talked to people about. Again, this is a grassroots effort [Beaudion, 2026.07.01, timestamp 08:49].
Origin of money may be the one ounce of lemonade Beaudion can squeeze from his meager lemon fundraising, but it’s tricky to calculate from outside. Candidates only have to itemize contributions—i.e., identify individual donors by name and address—when an individual gives more than $200 during the election cycle. So the donations we can break down by state do not include all the little one-time donations candidates get—and Bengs claimed in the July 1 debate that his average contribution is $29.
But according to the FEC reports covering April 2025 through May 13, 2026 (the FEC hasn’t updated the receipts pages with post-primary Q2 data), 68% of the cash Beaudion received from folks giving over $200 came from South Dakota addresses. Only 16% of Bengs’s itemized contribution money came from South Dakota addresses.
However, those itemized contributions made up only 40% of Bengs’s total fundraising reported as of May 13. At that point, 60% of Bengs’s campaign cash had come from people who have donated $200 or less. Itemized donations made up 74% of Beaudion’s reported haul as of May 13; just 26% of Beaudion’s cash came from small donations.
Not knowing the origin of unitemized contributions, we can still confidently say that more than half of Beaudion’s money comes from South Dakota. But with more than half of Bengs’s money coming from small and thus unitemized donors, we cannot determine from public documents whether 85% of Bengs’s money comes from out of state.