Toby Doeden has often said he wants to eliminate property taxes:
Doeden’s campaign website says he will eliminate property taxes “so that you can raise your family, operate your farm or ranch, and grow your business.”
He told Rapid City television station KOTA in December that he would “completely eliminate property taxes,” adding “farmers, ranchers, small business owners are being crippled.”
A Doeden campaign postcard mailed earlier this year carried the heading “eliminate property taxes,” without any language limiting the pledge to homeowners. The text under the heading was also devoid of qualifying language: “South Dakota residents are getting crushed under the weight of property taxes. Toby Doeden will phase out property taxes once and for all” [Joshua Haiar, “Amid Criticism, Candidate Spokesperson Says Property Tax Elimination Plan Is Only for Homeowners,” South Dakota Searchlight, 2026.07.17].
But now that his runoff opponent, Governor Larry Rhoden, is pounding him with charges that he’ll destroy local budgets, swing himself a half-million-dollar tax break, and bring about an income tax, Doeden is clarifying that he only intends to get rid of property taxes on homeowners:
In response to that criticism, Doeden’s campaign spokesperson Matt Hurley said this week that Doeden’s plan has never applied to any classes of property beyond owner-occupied homes. They produce about $815 million in local tax revenue. Eliminating property taxes for homeowners — and nobody else — has “always been the plan,” Hurley said [Haiar, 2026.07.17].
This response isn’t the full gaslighting reversal Doeden is committing on trust taxes. In his pre-primary interview with Haiar’s colleague Meghan O’Brien, Doeden focused on homeowner property taxes:
I’m going to fix, largely, South Dakota’s affordability issue for most residents, and I’m going to completely fix all of the housing issues when, as governor, I begin the process of completely phasing out all property taxes for South Dakota homeowners [Toby Doeden, interviewed by Meghan O’Brien, “How Governor Candidate Toby Doeden Says He’ll Phase Out Property Taxes,” South Dakota Searchlight, 2026.05.15, from transcript].
But that’s a rare instance where Doeden has specified that he will end only homeowner property taxes. From the beginning of his campaign, Doeden has used the phrase “eliminate property taxes“, which any reasonable listener would assume means all property taxes. If his intent all along has been to eliminate property tax on owner-occupied homes while leaving property taxes on agricultural and commercial land in place, you’d think he would have made that crystal clear from the beginning.