The press much discussed the thousands of voters who apparently switched their party affiliation after the June 2 primary from Democratic or independent to Republican to have a say in the July 28 South Dakota Republican gubernatorial runoff.
But let’s be clear: party crashers did not win the runoff for Rhoden.
Between primary day and July 23 (which would include some people who registered after the July 13 deadline for getting on the rolls to participate in the runoff), Bob Mercer counted 2,710 fewer registered Democrats, 1,559 fewer registered independents, and 27 fewer Libertarians. Those figures add up to a net loss of 4,296 non-Republican voters. Over the same period, Republican rolls swelled by 7,335.
The Secretary of State has not provided data on how many of those new Republicans switched their party affiliation and how many were registering for the first time or reëntering the rolls after an absence.
But let’s assume the extreme case, that every voter who left the Dem, indie, or Lib rolls after the primary joined the GOP roll. Let’s also assume, not quite as extremely, that people who went to the trouble of switching their party registration during the runoff all flexed their new voting muscle and cast a ballot in the Rhoden/Doeden showdown. Finally let’s assume that, not at all extremely for Democrats, since Doeden offered Democrats nothing but Trumpy insults, that every party-switcher voted for Rhoden in the runoff. That’s 4,296 votes Rhoden couldn’t get in the primary all piling into Rhoden’s column in the runoff.
Larry Rhoden beat Toby Doeden yesterday by 49,152 votes. Rhoden’s runoff margin was almost identical to the 49,261 votes that he gained over his primary haul. Even in the extreme case where all possible party switchers would have picked Rhoden over Doeden, if we had a law like SDGOP chair Jim Eschenbaum has proposed to restrict party-switching that would have kept all 4,296 of those party-switchers from casting GOP runoff ballots, Larry Rhoden would still have gained 44,965 votes, and he still would have won the runoff by 44,856 votes. Striking 4,296 Rhoden voters from yesterday’s turnout would have changed Rhoden’s runoff percentage from 70.8% to 56.6% but not the outcome.
Even under the wildest assumption of party-switchers’ pro-Rhoden activism, Rhoden’s win had far less to do with luring Democrats and independents to temporarily join his party and far more to do with Republicans who supported Dusty Johnson and Jon Hansen in the primary uniting around their proven and experienced mainstream Republican Governor instead of the inexperienced insult jockey from Aberdeen.