The latest pre-election poll from South Dakota News Watch and the Chiesman Center for Democracy suggests another ho-hum Republican landslide in South Dakota next Tuesday. Among 500 likely voters surveyed October 12 through 14, Mason-Dixon Polling and Strategy found none of top three Republicans’ challengers mustering over 40% support:
- Governor: incumbent Larry Rhoden leads Democrat Dan Ahlers 56% to 36%.
- U.S. House: Attorney General Marty Jackley leads Democrat Nikki Gronli 60% to 32%.
- U.S. Senate: incumbent Mike Rounds leads independent Brian Bengs 56% to 37%.
Rhoden, Jackley, and Rounds all enjoy near universal name-recognition, while 34% said they don’t recognize Bengs, 35% don’t recognize Ahlers, and 61% don’t recognize Gronli.
The only other race SD News Watch and Chiesman asked Mason-Dixon to poll was the three-way Secretary of State contest, which offers a glimmer of Democratic hope. Right-wing radical fantasist Heather Baxter leads Liberty University student Terrence Davis but only by nine points, 40% to 31%. Libertarian Tamara Lesnar is siphoning away only 5% of the vote, leaving 24% telling Mason-Dixon they are undecided. Both candidates suffer from over 60% non-recognition, so Terrence! spend all that money you’re sitting on putting up posters, skywriting, driving through town with a megaphone and a giraffe, anything you can do just to make people know your name!
SD News Watch and Chiesman missed the chance to poll what may be the most interesting race, the battle for a seat on the Public Utilities Commission, in which stalwart Democrat and Scotland farmer Frank Kloucek may be the one candidate capitalizing on cross-partisan populist frustration with data centers, carbon pipelines, and other threats to property rights and rural values against his corporate-crony opponent, Sioux Falls Republican Don Haggar.
Of course South Dakota will vote Republican. They are part of a party that is much bigger than MAGA and they are sooo rural that MAGA just takes them for granted. The senate saves rural states and gives them over representation in the total congress. Since they are so dominant they are full of rinos too. It’s funny because they also take in so much more money than the send in and are much more Socialist, let me say that again, much much more Socialist than the liberal states.