Looking back, there has to be some reason why the first-place finisher in South Dakota’s Republican governor primary failed so miserably in the runoff. Aberdeen businessman Toby Doeden finished first in the primary in a four-candidate field with 31% of the vote, setting up a runoff with Gov. Larry Rhoden, who finished second with 25%. […]
After a bruising South Dakota primary season in which 16 incumbent Republican legislators lost and four Republicans battled for the governor nomination, the party is at a crossroads. South Dakota’s House Majority Leader Scott Odenbach, R-Spearfish, was voted by his peers into his leadership position in 2024, after major turnover in the lawmaking body that […]
SIOUX FALLS — A farmer who formerly served in the Legislature emerged Wednesday as the Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor of South Dakota. Steven McCleerey, 73, of rural Sisseton, served six years in the state House of Representatives from 2015 to 2020. He said his approach as lieutenant governor would be focused on cooperation rather […]
Two debates between South Dakota’s candidates for governor will take place in September. The first will be at the South Dakota State Fair in Huron during the fair Sept. 2-7, with the time and date of the debate yet to be confirmed. The second is scheduled for 8 p.m. Central, 7 p.m. Mountain on Sept. […]
Rarely has there been a campaign in this state offering more novelty, surprises and intrigue than this year’s race for the Republican nomination for governor, which ended Tuesday with South Dakota’s first statewide runoff election. The campaign got an early jolt when Gov. Kristi Noem resigned a year and a half ago to accept a […]
Republican political commentator Pat Powers joins Searchlight Report once again — this time to give his takes on Tuesday’s runoff election for the Republican nomination for governor. Powers has been writing about South Dakota campaigns for more than 20 years on his South Dakota War College blog. Gov. Larry Rhoden won 71% of the vote […]
South Dakota Gov. Larry Rhoden won the Republican Party’s nomination for governor Tuesday in a runoff election, earning the chance to seek his own four years in office after filling out the remainder of former Gov. Kristi Noem’s last term. The Associated Press called the race at about 7:10 p.m. with Rhoden receiving 73% of […]
Throughout my career in journalism, as an editorial writer and now as a columnist, I never seriously considered belonging to a political party. As an opinion writer, those political parties were subjects and sometimes targets but never any place I wanted to call home. My voter registration as an independent was something I wore like […]
South Dakota’s first statewide runoff election is Tuesday. Leading up to the polls opening, Searchlight Report host Meghan O’Brien takes listeners back to the beginning of the campaigns for the Republican nomination for governor, through debates and polling and to the final days leading up to Election Day. After a close four-way race, political outsider […]
Some of the political postcards mailed to South Dakota voters in the week ahead of Tuesday’s runoff election for the Republican nomination for governor are financed by a national group that received all of its recent contributions from a Pennsylvania billionaire. Federal Election Commission records show that the School Freedom Fund political action committee has […]
