Any Demcorats still harboring moral qualms about all that primary/runoff party-switching should put those qualms to rest. Longtime South Dakota Democratic Party activist Sharon Stroschein says re-registering to vote in Republican primaries is o.k.:
“I am very supportive of open primaries, and then we would have never had to do this, but because of that, I had to go to the courthouse, reregister ahead of time,” Stroschein said Wednesday.
In South Dakota, only Republicans can vote in Republican primary contests. Stroschein was a lifelong Democrat before she switched to become a Republican before the July 13 voter registration deadline ahead of the July 28 GOP gubernatorial primary runoff election. She voted in that runoff and is already, again, a registered Democrat.
“I did the only thing I could legally, and it was to switch,” Stroschein said [Dan Santella, “SD GOP, Dem Chairs Not Thrilled with Party Switching,” KELO-TV, 2026.07.29].
Among the things I learned from my six years as a Brown County Democrat: If Sharon says it’s a good idea, it’s a good idea. If the Democrats aren’t offering primary candidates and the Republicans are, switch you registration to Republican, vote for the least bad elephants, then switch right back to Democratic so you can support the better donkeys come November.
Monkey wrenching South Dakota politics is hardly a new idea. We talked about this when Mount Blogmore was still a thing in the earliest days of blogging.
Larry is right, but this wasn’t monkeywrenching. This time it would be real wrenching by trying to make sure a nutcase didn’t get control of the state. Monkeywrenching would have been voting for Doeden in the hope that Ahlers would win in the general election.
Indeed we did, Lar. grudznick well remembers the Messrs. Harlan and Sibby debating many things. The monkeywrenching is fine, until the insanerites and the overgodders are vanquished.
I will again say EVERYONE in SD should register Republican. A state with one party is a state with no parties. Candidates would have to rely on something other than a “R” in front of their name to win.
Over my cold dead hands.
Mark, how can you justify continuing a system where very good candidates lose elections simply by having a “D” next to their name, and less than mediocre candidates win elections by virtue of the “R” after their name?
This is as broken as “democracy” gets.
Mr. O has solid take. Now none of that would help Mr. Ahlers, or certainly not Ms. Wismer, who was a very, very bad candidate, but the corpse of Randy Seiler will beat Mr. Russell should it be legally nominated at convention 2.0 if there was not an (R) behind Mr. Russell’s name. Therein lies the issue with conventions. Conventions need to be outlawed.