South Dakota’s Republican establishment reëstablished itself in yesterday’s gubernatorial runoff, choosing Governor Larry Rhoden over insurgent Aberdeen loudmouth Toby Doeden by a stunning margin of 70.8% to 29.2%.
Rhoden’s victory is a remarkable turnaround from his embarrassing second-place finish in the June 2 primary. It is also the first time Rhoden has won a statewide vote as a standalone candidate.
Rhoden’s victory also represents a stunning failure of the Doeden campaign to build any momentum from its surprising primary win. Doeden entered the race for the GOP gubernatorial nomination with zero statewide name recognition and zero experience in campaigns or public office. On the sheer strength of Trumpist bombast and millions of his own dollars, Doeden was able to eke out a 30.6% primary win over Rhoden (25.2%) and two other incumbent Republican officeholders, Congressman Dusty Johnson (23.4%) and Speaker Jon Hansen (20.8%). But in the 58 days from the primary to the runoff, Doeden was unable to build any momentum or coalitions among Republican voters. Doeden won a smaller share of the runoff vote than the primary vote. 7,282 fewer Republicans voted for Doeden in the runoff than chose him in the primary, a drop of 17.5%, while Rhoden 49,261 more voters yesterday than he did on June 2, a gain of 143.5%.
County-level results further show Doeden’s utter humiliation. In the primary, Rhoden outpolled Doeden in 30 of 66 counties. In yesterday’s runoff, Rhoden beat Doeden in those same 30 counties and 34 more. Doeden scored slim majorities in just two West River counties far from Doeden’s home: Fall River (53.9%) and Todd (50.9%).
Both men won their home counties in the primary. Rhoden won Meade County again in the runoff, though by a slightly smaller margin, 70.6% to 29.4%, than his statewide tally. But Rhoden also crushed Doeden in Doeden’s home Brown County. Doeden’s closest neighbors chose Rhoden 67.9% to 32.1%.
Rhoden won more votes in the runoff than he won in the primary in every single county. Rhoden more than doubled his vote count in 39 counties. Doeden lost voters in 62 counties. The only counties where more people showed up for Doeden yesterday than supported him in the primary were relatively small McPherson, Corson, Moody, and Oglala Lakota counties, and the 88 new runoff votes Doeden won in those four counties together were still swamped by the 854 new runoff votes that Rhoden won at those same polls.
Rhoden finished last in the primary in Union, Lincoln, Brown, Minnehaha, Davison, Miner, McCook, and Brookings. Rhoden won the runoff in all eight of those counties. In four of the more populous of Rhoden’s worst-to-first counties, Rhoden’s vote tally beat his statewide runoff total of 70.8%:
- Davison: 74.6%
- Brookings: 73.5%
- Lincoln: 72.8%
- Minnehaha: 72.2%
- Miner: 70.8%
- McCook: 69.0%
- Brown: 67.9%
- Union: 55.3%
(Rhoden will be sending Tony Venhuizen down to Union County to tell Dan Lederman to get his county GOP house in order.)