Clearly heeding retail lobbyist Nathan Sanderson’s call for boring government, Senate Republicans have joined their 2026 primary electorate in pushing mugwumps out of power. While the current Senate’s leadership team included three certifiable right-wingnuts (Jensen, Peterson, Pischke), the 2027 Senate GOP leadership team is all mainstreamers:
Republican senators met Friday and nominated Tim Reed of Brookings as president pro tempore and selected Casey Crabtree of Madison as majority leader and Amber Hulse of Hot Springs as assistant majority leader. As majority whips, Republican senators selected Randy Deibert of Spearfish, Helene Duhamel of Rapid City, Jim Mehlhaff of Pierre and Stephanie Sauder of Bryant.
Mehlhaff, who was previously majority leader, and Deibert, who was already serving as a majority whip, are the only holdovers from the previous leadership team [Seth Tupper, “Pendulum Continues to Swing in South Dakota Senate with Selection of New Republican Leaders,” South Dakota Searchlight, 2026.11.07].
Out of 33 Republicans elected to the Senate last week, I count maybe ten real wingnuts. The next two Sessions may be boring indeed!
Meanwhile, the two-person Democratic Senate caucus has name Liz Larson minority leader and Erik Muckey assistant minority leader. Of course, to use the term “leader”, I think you need someone to lead….