Republican Senator Marion Michael Rounds is already using Democratic candidate Julian Beaudion’s graceless withdrawal from the U.S. Senate campaign as an opportunity to raise more money by stoking fears of stealth socialism. The Rounds campaign sent out this alarmist e-mail yesterday declaring that, with the evil Left now able to coalesce around independent Brian Bengs, Rounds’s seat is no longer safe:
Fellow Conservative,
I need you to read this carefully, because the entire race just changed.
The Democrat in my election, Julian Beaudion, dropped out.
That might sound like good news. It is not. Here is why:
With the Democrat gone, the left did not give up on this seat. They simply switched weapons. Their entire hope now rests on Brian Bengs, a fake independent and liberal socialist who ran as a Democrat just two years ago and is now hiding his party label to fool South Dakota voters.
And a fake independent is far more dangerous than an honest Democrat. He can peel off independents and even soft Republicans who would never vote for a Democrat, all while the national left quietly funnels him money under the radar.
This is no longer a safe seat. It is a real race. And I will not pretend otherwise just to make you comfortable [emphasis in original; Rounds for Senate, campaign e-mail, 2026.08.05].
I’m not sure what money Bengs is getting that is any quieter than Rounds’s far greater campaign contributions from fat-cat corporate interests across the country. Bengs and Rounds both have to report their cash to the Federal Election Commission for public viewing.
And I’m not sure Bengs is fooling anybody. The real fools would be the soft Republicans who think Mike Rounds is one of them, even though his support for King Don’s disregard of the Constitution, anti-free-market tariffs, state ownership of private businesses, and expansion of government power to take away the liberties of American citizens makes Smiling Mike a fake Republican and a totalitarian communist.