Abram Naber, 42, of Rapid City, said in a primary day polling place interview with Searchlight that he didn’t cast a vote in the congressional, legislative or local races: “Just Toby.”
“He’s an outsider of the political spectrum,” Naber said. “I think we need fresh meat, fresh blood in the Governor’s Office” [Joshua Haiar, “Toby Doeden: A Bitcoin Evangelist and Anti-Property-Tax Crusader Who Wants to Be Governor,” South Dakota Searchlight, 2026.07.16].
Abram Naber and (assuming he turned out for the runoff, too) 34,429 other voters came away from the July 28 gubernatorial runoff disappointed as long-time Pierre insider Larry Rhoden crushed their outsider choice Toby Doeden 70.8% to 29.2%. What should those fresh-meat craving devotees of Doeden do in the general election?
If the Doedenite expressions of outsiderism stemmed from genuine belief that South Dakota will benefit from replacing Pierre’s ruling elites with new leaders not beholden to the establishment machine, they must vote for the only outsiders left in the gubernatorial race, Democratic candidate Dan Ahlers and his newly named running mate Steven McCleerey.
Democrats have been outsiders in Pierre throughout most of South Dakota’s 137 years of statehood. Ahlers and McCleerey both spent three terms in the Legislature as members of shrinking and largely powerless Democratic minorities. They worked at the fringes to win marginal improvements on the bad ideas of the establishment machine. Ahlers and McCleerey have never been insiders in the real centers of power in South Dakota crony-capitalist complex.
Larry Rhoden has been part of the Republican machine since at least 2001, when he first won election to the House. Rhoden served eight terms in the Legislature as a member of the ruling party. His loyal party service won him Kristi Noem’s favor in 2018 when she chose him as her running mate. Rhoden is Governor now only because he played the game, won that personal favor, and was Lieutenant Governor when Noem pursued her golden ticket in the Trump Administration. Rhoden was an insider picked by an insider.
Likewise Tony Venhuizen. Rhoden’s Lieutenant Governor is the smartest man in state government, but if Doeden voters wanted smarts, they’d have chosen Dusty Johnson in the primary. Venhuizen has been a Pierre insider for nearly his entire life. The Armour native worked for Mike Rounds’s gubernatorial campaign in 2002. Rounds appointed Venhuizen to the Board of Regents in 2003. He managed Dennis Daugaard’s gubernatorial campaign in 2010 and worked for Daugaard in Pierre throughout Daugaard’s eight years in office. He was a regular fixture in the first Noem administration, working as senior advisor and chief of staff before Noem made him a Regent again. Venhuizen won a House seat in 2022, won reëlection in 2024, and then won Rhoden’s nod for Lieutenant Governor in 2025. Venhuizen has his current job because he is the consummate insider, picked by an insider who was picked by an insider.
So, Doeden voters, if you really want outsiders in government, you can’t vote for four more years of Rhoden and Venhuizen. You have to clean out the Second Floor and vote for Ahlers and McCleerey, the outsider ticket.